Pokemon Go May Not Come Out in China and Here's Why

The Pokemon Company said last year that it was hoping to launch Pokemon Go in the gamer-rich country of China. It looks like Pokemon Go faces an uphill road to release there.

Reuters reports that Pokemon Go, and other unspecified augmented reality games, are "unlikely to be rolled out in China anytime soon," due in part to concerns about information security and safety.

China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television has decided to work with other branches of the country's government to "evaluate the game's risks," the report said. This decision was motivated by a "high level of responsibility to national security and the safety of people's lives and property," the group said.

Specifically, China's Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association said Pokemon Go's risks include a "threat to geographical information security and the threat to transport and the personal safety of consumers."

Pokemon Go has been linked to car crashes around the world, some of them fatal. The game leverages Google Maps to track your location, which makes some people--and governments apparently--uneasy.

When Pokemon Go came out in Japan, the country's government released a flier that warned players of potential danger and issues they could encounter while searching for Pokemon in the real world.

A spokesperson for Niantic told Kotaku that the developer is "focused elsewhere at the moment" in response to the news about China evaluating Pokemon Go.

Pokemon Go was the most-downloaded game on the iOS App Store in 2016.