China regulator approves 86 new video game licences in May in another sign sector is back on track
- Tencent, operator of the world’s largest video gaming business by revenue, received a licence for Ace Force 2
- Other approvals include Dislyte, an urban mythological role-playing game developed by Lilith Games
The National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), the agency responsible for licensing video games in China, published its latest list of approvals on Monday, with an amount in line with previous months this year.
Tencent, operator of the world’s largest video gaming business by revenue, received a licence for Ace Force 2, a first-person shooting mobile game. NetEase, China’s second-largest video gaming company, was granted a licence for a mobile and personal computer game named Seven-Day World.
The new list reaffirms the picture that China’s video game licence approvals process is back to normal after a year-long crackdown that started in late 2021, when authorities imposed an eight-month freeze on game approvals and imposed a three-hours-a-week online game time limit for minors.
However, the domestic video games market is still in the process of recovery amid economic headwinds. Game sales for the China market in the first three months of 2023 fell 15 per cent year-on-year to 67.5 billion yuan (US$9.24 billion), according to a report by video gaming analytics firm CNG.
Some major Chinese players are seeing a recovery in game sales in 2023. In the first quarter, Tencent reported a 6 per cent rise in domestic game revenue to 35.1 billion yuan, while its international gaming revenue rose 25 per cent to 13.2 billion yuan.
Late last year Bilibili also doubled down on its gaming business, which once accounted for over 80 per cent of its total revenue before being eclipsed by video streaming. Chen Rui, chief executive of Bilibili, took over direct management of the video gaming unit last November.