China has extended its crackdown on porn to online games after shutting down 1,250 websites for containing explicit pornographic content.

The Ministry of Culture said in a notice posted on its website Thursday that the ministry had already blacklisted a number of online games, including the "Red Light Center", for containing pornographic contents.

The multi-user game, developed by Vancouver-based Utherverse Inc., features a virtual sex function for fee-paying users through computerized personae, and allows users to take virtual drugs.

The website of the game and its developer was inaccessible by Thursday evening.

The notice also demanded game developers to clean up their act when promoting their products.

"We have noticed that some game developers and operators have been using obscene pictures and sexually provocative languages to promote their products. The Culture Ministry will target these illegal doings as the focus of our work," the notice said.

The Ministry would strengthen administration on online games, mobile games, and online comics as part of the anti-porn campaign to "build a cleaner online environment," it said.

The campaign, launched in early January by seven government departments including the State Council's Information Office, Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Culture, has already been extended to mobile phone games, online novels, videos and radio programs.

The departments promised last week that the campaign would be no "flash in the pan".

By Wednesday, 41 people had been detained for disseminating porn on the Internet, and over 3.2 million "items of online information" have been deleted.

(Xinhua News Agency January 23, 2009)