Even though the gaming market in China is huge and they seem to own a big number of developers and studios however imported games were not able to break into so easily. Recently it was reported by Reuters’ correspondent Josh Ye that 44 games have been approved and given gaming licenses for domestic releases ending China's 18 month crackdown on the video game industry which began in August last year when regulators suspended the game approval process.
In case you forgot: Blizzard leaves China: goodbye WoW, Diablo and Overwatch
Among the 44 games we found Pokémon Unite, Valorant, The Witcher Card Game and Don’t Starve. It is worth noting that the regulator initially released a list of 45 approved imported games nonetheless they removed Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming today without explanation.
Another highlight of this was the approval of seven South Korean games. In case you are not familiar with the China-Korea relationship, back in 2017 China restricted the import of South Korean content after a dispute over South Korea's installation of a U.S. missile defence shield.
Will this change last?
It was reported that China approval helped every company with most of them showing a favourable change in their shares, for example, Tencent, XD Inc, and iDreamSky rose between 0.8% and 5.2% in Hong Kong, while Nintendo gained 0.2%.
Hopefully, this is a change in the “right direction” after China’s strict licensing regime has left their gamers with very few foreign titles available, only this year they approved 76 games while in 2017 were 456.
Did you know?: Is Microsoft looking for a Genshin Impact-style Xbox hit in China?
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