China’s gaming regulator NPPA granted publishing licenses to a number of games back in April and June 2022, and now in July 2022. However, publishers and developers wanting to operate in the country continue to face tight restrictions. NPPA has been a bit more lenient in the last couple of months, but both Tencent and NetEase are yet to get a license for their games at home.
The lengthy suspension of gaming approvals in China may have come to an end, and in fact, Chinese gaming stocks rise after the approval of new games, but the mystery cloud surrounding the two Chinese video game giants is still around and might not go away anytime soon. This is the third time in 2022 alone that both Tencent and NetEase are overlooked by the country’s gaming regulator.
Both companies are investing heavily outside China, with Tencent planning a major global release for Honor of Kings and NetEase lately investing in a Poland-based VR studio. Nonetheless, things have been problematic for both companies. For instance, NetEase’s shares significantly tanked after having to delay Diablo Immortal’s release in China due to —according to rumors— Chinese government involvement.
China’s economic rise over the last few years is quite impressive and the video games industry has seen a fair share of growth and is expected to grow even further., but getting a video game published in China also became a tougher order, even for giants like Tencent and NetEase.
It’s been longer than a whole year since either of these companies were given a publishing license in China, and both companies have seen their shares tank, Tencent by nearly 27% and NetEase % by 11 give or take.
Meanwhile, ByteDance’s games were approved by NPPA. The TikTok owner made over $1 Billion from mobile games last year and the company’s expectations for 2022 are even higher.
