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.NetEase obtained a licence for Fantasy Life, a role-playing simulation game published by Nintendo.The NPPA’s latest imported game approvals ended a drought that stretched back to June 2021, when the regulator granted 76 licences.
The number of imported game approvals in China has been shrinking. Authorities in 2020 and 2019, for example, granted licences to 97 and 180 imported games, respectively.
China’s golden week holiday gamers push sales higher in October
The NPPA on Wednesday also published a list of 84 locally developed games that have been granted licences, the last such batch to get approvals this year.
Overall, the NPPA issued 462 licences for domestic video games in 2022, down from 755 last year.
NetEase-Blizzard break-up raises speculation on US firm’s next China partner
Tencent founder, chairman and chief executive Pony Ma Huateng, however, remains wary of the regulator’s direction. In a year-end meeting with company employees last week, Ma warned that the company’s video gaming division will continue to live under a stringent regulatory environment, and he expects regulators to keep a tight grip on the number of new game approvals.
