On Wednesday, the video game regulator of China finally granted publishing licenses to 45 foreign games for release in the country. After this approval from the government of China, one of the most popular mobile MOBA games Pokémon UNITE will finally release in the country. The MOBA game has taken the world by storm since its release in 2020. Most recently, the game celebrated its 100 million downloads.
After 18 months the Chinese government is finally lifting rigid restrictions and approving 84 games from domestic publishers and 45 games from foreign publishers. These restrictions have hindered the gaming industry in China for a long time.
Due to these restrictions, the revenue of the industry also took a hit. The government eased these restrictions a bit in April of this year when it started granting new licenses. Now finally, Chinese developers and publishers will get some room to breathe after the removal of these restrictions.
Valorant and Pokémon UNITE are among the games approved for publishing in China
According to a report via Reuters, among the imported online games approved by the National Press and Publication Administration are five to be published by Tencent Holdings such as Pokémon Unite by Nintendo and Valorant by Riot Games. The regulator also approved 84 domestic games for December, according to a list released separately.
This approval ends the crackdown of the Chinese government on the video games industry which began last August when regulators suspended the game approval process. In China, the world’s largest gaming market regulators have to approve video games before their release.
In July this year, games from Tencent and NetEase were excluded from a list of 67 newly approved games. Beijing’s year-long crackdown on the industry impacted the revenues of Chinese tech companies like Tencent and NetEase which lead the industry in publishing both self-developed and imported games in China.
Now the tide is shifting in the favor of these two giants as their games are getting approval from regulators. Besides Tencent and NetEase other companies like ByteDance, XD Inc and iDreamSky have also received game approvals from regulators this month.
Are you excited as Pokémon UNITE is set to release in China? Do let us know in the comment section below!
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