China has permitted the release of 80 online video games after withholding their approval for months. This is a big development since China is known to censor creative content in their ecosystem.
According to Reuters, the approved titles were listed on the website of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, but it is worth knowing that they did not include games from Tencent Holdings Ltd, an industry leader.
The world biggest gaming market stopped accepting new video games in March amid a regulatory overhaul prompted by rising criticism of video games for their violence and also, allegations that they cause myopia as well as addiction among young users.
The censorship and relaxing process tally with a senior official’s announcement on December 21. According to TechCrunch, there is quite a lot of applications in the pipeline while the Chinese gaming regulator is trying its best to approve titles as soon as possible.
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This is imperative because studios cannot legally monetize their titles in China in the absence of licenses. The long months interruption in approving video games has lowered earnings in China. As per the report by Beijing-based research firm GPC and China’s official gaming association CNG, the drop has been 5.4 percent year-over-year growth in the first half of 2018 – the slowest rate in the last ten years.
TechCrunch reported that many game developers said licenses are granted on the first come, first serve basis according to the order of game studios applied. Almost 7,000 game titles are on the waiting list, among which only 3,000 may receive the official licenses next year, 21st-century business herald reports.