Reports have surfaced that the Chinese government has shut down digital poker and mahjong, and at the same time approved a vast backlog of video game titles. China is the world’s No. 1 market for video games in the world, according to TechCrunch.com.
On April 10, the country’s newly established State Administration of Press and Publication held a gaming conference with announcements that will “move some to joy and others to sorrow,” the website reported, including the elimination of some genres and the end of mahjong and poker games.
The latter decision is part of a broader government crackdowns to head off illegal gambling operations. “These digital forms of traditional leisure activities are immensely popular for studios because they are relatively cheap to make and bear lucrative fruit,” TechCrunch reported. “According to video game researcher Niko Partners, 37 percent of the 8,561 games approved in 2017 were poker and mahjong titles.”
The new rule will push out hundreds of small developers but may not affect entrenched operators, a source told the website. “It won’t affect us much because we are early to the market and have accumulated a big collection of licenses,” the source said.
China will also stop approving certain games that reference its imperial past including “gongdou,” or harem scheming and “guandou,” the term for palace conspiracies, as well as some violent games. Such themes are distasteful to Chinese officials concerned about “obscene contents and the risk of political metaphors,” Daniel Ahmad, senior analyst at Nikos Partners, told TechCrunch.
“Chinese games developers are used to arbitrary regulations. They are quick at devising methods to circumvent requirements,” a Guangzhou-based indie games developer told the website.
