China tightens its measures against video games not authorized by the government

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china no aprueba juegos desde 2021 1000x600.jpg
china no aprueba juegos desde 2021 1000x600.jpg

For some time now we have seen the different measures that the Chinese government has been implementing, it seems that now the Asian giant is going to tighten its practices even more, having publicly announced that will begin to actively enforce regulation which prohibits live streaming of unauthorized games.

And it is that although the country has always required that the games have an official license before they can be sold or broadcast within the country, until now it had been a little more “lax” now to enforce the latest ban.

According to what they share from Reuters, the country’s National Radio and Television Administration transmitted this message from the government last Friday, announcing that all internet platforms are “strictly prohibited” from streaming any of the titles that the government has not approved. Something redundant given that the country has been paralyzing the approval of new titles since the middle of last year.

China’s regulation around video games continues to focus on compliance and enforcement.

Games have always required a license before they can be distributed or streamed in China. The latter was rarely enforced. Now it will be. https://t.co/gRZeSQ6hLX

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) April 15, 2022

For his part, Daniel Ahmad, a senior analyst at research firm Niko Partners, said that while unlicensed games could not be officially released in mainland China, many were promoted on live streaming platforms such as Huya, DouYu and Bilibili. Although at the moment the real impact of this announcement on these companies is unknown, it would not be surprising to see future actions by Tencent and other video game companies in the country.

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In fact, one of the most recent unauthorized games has been the successful Elden Ring, which, as Ahman himself anticipated, «was a hit on Chinese game live streaming platforms, reaching 17.1 million cumulative daily average viewers, despite not having a license«.

This is not the first controversial measure applied by the country with respect to video games. Just a few months ago we saw how, after the long wait and harsh limitations to which it had had to submit, China finally once again restricted access to Steam within the country; additionally, other regulations were also introduced last year to limit the amount of time that those under 18 can spend playing video games, reduced to just three hours a week, in what the government called “a necessary measure to combat gaming addiction«.