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China gaming ban: Beijing issues licences to 44 imported games, first time in 18 months for approvals, with Tencent and NetEase included
- The National Press and Publication Administration on Wednesday published its list of approved imported games, the first such batch since June 2021
- Overall, the regulator issued 462 licences for domestic video games in 2022, down from 755 last year
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Iris Dengin Shenzhen
China has granted licences to 44 imported games, marking the first such batch of approvals in 18 months, providing a measure of relief to the world’s largest video gaming market amid tightened government regulation.
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The National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), the agency responsible for licensing video games in China, on Wednesday published its latest list of approved titles, which included submissions from the country’s top gaming companies Tencent Holdings and NetEase.
On the mainland, an imported game has to be “localised” by a Chinese company and vetted by Beijing’s censors before it can be made available to the country’s more than 700 million gamers across all platforms.
“The market has been anticipating imported games’ approval after [new] domestic games were approved in the past few months,” Jefferies equity analyst Thomas Chong said in a report on Wednesday.
Internet giant Tencent, which runs the world’s largest video gaming business by revenue, received licences for tactical shooter game Valorant from US developer Riot Games as well as for multiplayer online battle arena game Pokémon Unite published by The Pokémon Company.
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NetEase obtained a licence for Fantasy Life, a role-playing simulation game published by Nintendo.
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