On February 24, Apple App Store developers discovered that when submitting a game to the App Store, there is a short notice that's meant to change the landscape.
The notice states, "Under Chinese law, games need to be licensed by the State Administration of Press and Publication. Therefore, please provide us with the license approval of any paid games or games with in-app purchases you plan to release in mainland China by June 30, 2020. "
This notice quickly caused shock in the industry, the most notable of which was the text "license approval for any paid games or games with in-app purchases " by June 30.
This means that the days when you first went to the Apple App Store to obtain income without obtaining license approval are gone.
In the notice, Apple reminded developers of the need for more details, and it pointed to the “Announcement on Management of Mobile Game Publishing Services” issued by the State Administration of Radio and Television in 2016.
According to the notice, game approval requires license approval. The game can only be charged online if it obtains license approval, otherwise it can only be continuously free public beta.
"This matter has been dragging on for almost 5 years. Since Apple entered China and obtained a telecommunications value-added service license, it has been requesting," Tang Liang, general manager of Shenzhen Dentsu Information Technology, said to Jiemian.com.
In the AppStore, Apple's requirements for Chinese game developers to submit license approval already exist.
In 2016, Apple stipulated that according to the "Notice on the Management of Mobile Game Publishing Services" issued by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, mobile games must be approved before they can be released.
However, the implementation of the regulation was not strict. At that time, some developers stated on social networks that as long as the developer account registration information is not in China, they will not be affected by the regulations.
Some developers also notice that the developer account registered as an individual developer is not subject to regulations.
"In the past, you could drill holes in the agreement, but now it is not possible. When Apple goes to China to launch the Apple App Store, China requires that the server must be placed in China and the game must have a license approval." Tang Liang said.
"The Apple developer account applied by the company has to submit a license approval to go online. However, individual developers and overseas developers are not restricted."
In fact, there are a large number of overseas non-license approved games on the AppStore. These include not only many paid mobile games, but also games released by overseas game vendors that are free to download. These companies only need to backstage to release games in the Chinese market Check "China" to publish on the AppStore in China without barriers.
According to statistics from the Southern Metropolis Daily in October 2018, there are 58 best-selling free games on the AppStore without license approval or "fake license approval". This phenomenon is called "unlicensed driving."
Yang Xun, founder of game company veewo, believes that with Apple's formal tightening of license approval requirements, developers will "copy" multiple games by changing channels, which will have the biggest impact.
The industry generally believes that as the requirements for license approval become clear, it means that at least a large number of domestic games in China will no longer be released in the previous release method.
In March 2018, China, the world's biggest gaming market, stopped approving new video games amid a regulatory overhaul triggered by growing criticism of video games for being violent and allegations that they were causing myopia as well as addiction among young users.
In December 2018, China approved the release of 80 online video games, marking the first batch after a freeze on such approvals for most of the year.
