China approved a record number of games in 17 months – Kommersant
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National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) of China announced on issuing licenses for the distribution of 105 games developed by Chinese companies. This is a record number of approved games since July 2022. In addition, another 98 new ones will become available to Chinese users. foreign games.
This brings the total number of games approved by the Chinese regulator this year to 1,076, significantly more than in previous years. Thus, the issuance of licenses was frozen for eight months – from August 2021 to March 2022 – due to the COVID-19 pandemic and massive government repression against the country’s IT sector. As a result, 748 titles were approved in 2021, and even fewer in 2022 – only 512.
Such a large-scale issuance of licenses came as a surprise after the propaganda department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China published a draft of new rules for the video game market, which are designed to strictly regulate the requirements for both developers and publishers of these products, and for the users themselves.
As a result of the restrictions, shares of video game developers and publishers, not just Chinese ones, fell sharply on Friday. Thus, shares of Tencent Holdings fell by 12% by the end of the trading day, and the capitalization of this world’s largest video game developer decreased by $46 billion. Shares of Netease fell by 28%, Nexon – by 8%, Bilibili – by 8%. In Europe, shares of French Ubisoft fell 8% in the morning.
China’s online gaming industry is the largest in the world, with about 650 million users and revenue last year of $45 billion. This year the market was expected to grow by almost 14%.
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