China is one of the leading markets for mobile games. Back in June, we talked about the new strict roles that developers and publishers have to obey in order to release their game on China’s App Store. all non-free iOS games will have to submit licenses issued by the Chinese Administration of Press and Publication (SAPP). All developers must submit the license before the ending of last month. Apparently, a lot of games couldn’t do it. Today, Sensor Tower reported that Apple removed over 2500 games in the first week of July.
About 660 games have been added to China’s App Store
According to Sensor Tower, in the first 7 days of the month, 660 games launched on China’s App Store. However, 2500 games have been removed at the time. The intelligence company noted that the figures are only captured from titles that were large enough to rank in the App Store’s games subcategories and that have been removed for five days or more. The number of removed games increased by 2000 compared to previous weeks. In the charts below, you can see how the new regulations affected the mobile games market in China.
80 percent of the removed mobile games generated less than 10 thousand downloads in China since January 1, 2012. Furthermore, the games removed in the first week of July had generated a combined $34.7 million in lifetime gross (in China only). Some of the notable removed games Zynga’s Solitaire, Glu’s Contract Killer Zombies 2, Crazy Labs’ ASMR Slicing. Other titles are Nonstop Chunk Norris and Supercell’s Hay Day.
China is still the most lucrative market
Last year, games on China’s App Store generated an estimated $12.6 billion, representing 33.2 percent of all global games spending on Apple’s marketplace last year. The United States followed in number 2 with $9 billion, that’s 23.7 percent of total App Store games revenue. For the first half of 2020, China’s App Store made $6.7 billion. On the other hand, the United States’ App Store generated $5.8 billion.
