The fight against the so-called “spiritual opium” of gaming by the Chinese government presses on into the new year. Readers will recall that a so-called “slow down” of gaming approvals kicked off in the middle of 2021, causing heavy hitters like Tencent and NetEase to take $60B in stock losses on the chin. It appears the freeze continues to be in place in the country, which is now having a far more severe ripple effect for smaller studios and gaming firms based in China.
The National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), which is responsible for licensing video games in China, hasn’t published any new approvals since the end of July, marking the longest freeze on gaming approvals since 2018. This has caused about 14,000 games-related enterprises, including small studios, merchandising firms, advertising firms, and publishing companies, to go out of business. It has also caused other companies in the country to lay off staff in order to counter lost profit, while firms like Tencent and NetEase are now reaching out to more overseas markets. The NPPA has yet to release any statements indicating why approvals have stalled or when they may start back up.
This aligns with the hit piece published by a state-affiliated newspaper alluded to in the lede, kicking off a Chinese government crackdown on minors’ gaming time to fight perceived addiction. The Chinese government further talked about anti-monopoly measures to stymie “disorderly expansion” of game studios and added a laundry list of new standards for games, including demands that effeminate male characters get axed, games stop offering “blurred moral boundaries,” and that Chinese games stop looking like games from Japan.
