Game News China: After a nine-month hiatus, the country is re-approving video games
The situation in China has been lifted: nine months after the last approvals given to studios for their productions, new licenses have been issued by the Chinese government.
Summary
- 45 approved games
- Nine months of frost
45 approved games
It’s a long desert that ended yesterday. According to Reuters media, the Chinese gambling regulator has licensed forty-five games† A list published on the NPPA websitethe National Press and Public Affairs Administration, which does not include games developed by behemoths Tencent (Pokemon Unite True Arena of Valor for example) or NetEase (Diablo Immortal† An observation that, according to several analysts of the Chinese video game market, is not necessarily worth mentioning. For example, the well-known Daniel Ahmad indicates that these major players in Chinese video games were not present before, not even before the “freeze” of the operations. For good reason, they must have plenty of pre-approved titles waiting to be released.
Nine months of frost
It will therefore have been necessary to wait nine months for the approvals by the Chinese government to thaw. At the beginning of the year, the state newspaper published Daily Effects had identified the closure of 14,000 studios (of which 850 with a game or a registered product) after this paralysis of validations. A second shutdown, this time unjustly, after the one in 2018 (also nine months) due to administrative reorganization. If this “pause” ended, it’s hard to know if it was directly related to China’s new guidelines around video games. Many measures have been taken in the past year to strengthen government control over these practices.
Among them, we can note the strict limitation of the playing time of minors. Since the end of August 2021, Chinese under 18s are not allowed to play only three hours a week online at specific times : Friday, Saturday and Sunday between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. In the wake of these measures, a note had slipped away media regulators reminding them that the video game should no longer be considered a “entertainment“but as an art space and he had to respect that”suitable values†
Through CharlanMhgWrite jeuxvideo.com
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