The recent actions of the Chinese Government and their war on online games are showing its effects as the gaming giant NetEase scales down multiple game projects at their Shanghai and Hangzhou studios, out of their work, and have instructed them to find roles inside or outside NetEase, reports SCMP. However, no employee has officially been retrenched
NetEase, Tencent and other companies stop projects to follow the new guidelines
These changes have been going on since early September and it’s no wonder that a company like NetEase that mostly releases online multiplayer games would be affected by the State’s decisions. As we already know, now players under the age of 18 have only an hour a day on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for online games.
Additionally, NetEase was summoned a short while ago by regulators too who criticized the obscene and violent content and unhealthy tendencies like money worshipping and effeminacy that they feel have permeated into video games. In the same meeting, the regulators decided to slow down the regulation process that approves games in order to cut down the number of games and reduce gaming addiction, especially in minors. This plan was made after discussion between game regulators, The National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the
Surprised by how strongly they are targeting the addictiveness and monetization. Will they completely stop companies trying to generate addiction, in which case freemium could be dead? “Or are they just trying to get (video gaming companies) to tone it back? In that case, it will probably still be significant, but not necessarily devastating
LightStream Research’s founder Mio Kato
Usually, the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) releases a list of 80-100 games monthly that have been approved in the country but this month, there was no list so the gears are definitely in motion.
Tough days ahead for Chinese gaming companies
What’s going on at NetEase is inevitable at this point. The way the Chinese Government is going about this, it’s just going to get harder for giants like NetEase and Tencent who’ve also been affected to operate there and they’ll have to look for better opportunities elsewhere.
The last time regulators decided to freeze approvals, more than 28,000 companies went down between 2018-19 so hopefully, they could ease up the process, or else we could again see a lot of companies go down and big companies like Tencent and NetEase scale down projects drastically.
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