There are a lot of game companies in China, but Tencent and NetEase are the two titans with huge stables of titles, numerous online games in their rosters, and general cachet and significance to outside observers. So it’s pretty surprising that even as the third round of game approvals moves through the new governmental agencies for the purpose that neither NetEase nor Tencent are included on the list. Yes, after the nearly year-long approval freeze through 2018, the two giants are still frozen.
Reports from the government indicate that the numerous titles backlogged for approval are moving through the process in the order they were originally received, so it’s certainly possible that the process just hasn’t gotten to either of these companies. But it doesn’t seem probable, although there’s very little transparency involved at the moment. Regardless, it seems like both companies are still hurting from the extended freeze through 2018 – Tencent even lost significant value last year over the move – and will most likely continue to be hurt until their games start moving through the pipeline once more.
