Video game approvals may have resumed in China but poker and mahjong are out in the cold
- In the first quarter, Chinese regulators approved 795 domestic video games, none of which came from the poker and mahjong genre
- The world’s biggest video gaming market was once full of low-budget poker games
It looks like China’s government has crossed poker and mahjong games off the approvals list as regulators this week gave the green light to another batch of new video games after a nine-month halt last year, signalling stricter controls over online gambling.
China’s top content regulator – the State Administration of Press and Publications (SAPP) – suspended the licensing process for new games for nine months last year, restarting it on December 19. The regulatory hiatus, part of a broader government restructuring, came as Beijing tightened its controls over video games to combat youth addiction. As a result, China’s gaming market, the world’s largest, recorded its slowest revenue growth in 2018 in at least a decade.
Of the 959 domestic video games to have obtained a licence since December 19, only one is from the poker and mahjong category – and that was on the very first day approvals resumed.
“The rate of approvals is slower than it has been in prior years,” according to a Niko Partners report. “This is primarily due to a crackdown on titles in the poker and mahjong genre after China’s government became concerned about real world money being used in these games.”
Calls to the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda department, which oversees the SAPP, went unanswered.
China’s video game market has been packed with low-budget, nearly identical card and board games, where players can use real money as chips for gambling – this in a country where gambling is illegal. Last year regulators granted licenses to over 11,000 new domestic games, and nearly 40 per cent of them were poker titles, according to data compiled by Shanghai-based Orient Securities.
Beginning last year police across the country have launched a wave of crackdowns on online poker platforms that allow people to play with real money. For example, in August police in Shenzhen arrested a gang of three dozen suspects, who raked in 3.4 billion yuan (US$506 million) in just three months through running a poker game app, according to a police statement.
In September, Chinese gaming giant Tencent Holdings shut down two of its popular poker games, Texas Hold ‘Em Poker and Happy Fight Poker, citing a “business adjustment”. The Shenzhen-based company still has a wide range of poker games on the market though.
The SAPP on Tuesday published a list of 30 newly licensed foreign games, in its first such move since February last year as the regulator attempts to clear a large backlog of domestic games. Among the new titles approved is a highly-anticipated mobile game adapted from the hit TV show Game of Thrones. Tencent is the sole publisher of the game in China.
Some of the world’s hottest games are still on the waiting list for a full launch in China. Tencent, for example, has yet to be cleared for in-game purchases for its two battle royale hits, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite.
“Despite the temporary game approval freeze last year, demand from gamers remained high and the Chinese game industry demonstrated growth, albeit it a slower rate,” said Niko Partners.
“With approvals beginning to ramp up and the recent addition of foreign intellectual property at the end of March, we believe that the outlook for 2019 is positive.”
