China allows 44 foreign games on the internal market

The Chinese government has granted publishing licenses to 44 foreign games, including Pokémon Unite, Valorant, Gwent: The Witcher Card Game and Don’t Starve. This allows these games to be sold in China. There are also 84 domestic games approved.

According to Reuters five games on the list of approved games would be published by Tencent. Pokémon Unite and Valorant are two of them. The Chinese government has not communicated any official communication about the list.

In April of this year, the Chinese government already published a list of 45 approved game titles. Then it only concerned games from Chinese developers. Because the Chinese government had not published a new list of new approved games for months, more than 14,000 Chinese game companies had to close their doors. In 2020, about 18,000 Chinese game companies also closed their doors. This not only concerns companies that develop their own games, but also Chinese companies that focus on publishing game merchandise and advertisements, among other things.

In August of 2021, the same government presented rules for online gaming children in the country. From then on, game companies were only allowed to offer services to minors on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays between eight and nine o’clock in the evening. Through this restriction, the government wants to protect the physical and mental health of children and, in its own words, to combat game addiction. In September of last year, the Chinese government also introduced new rules to remove “violent and obscene content” from their games. Among other things, ‘money glorification and effeminacy’ in games should be avoided from now on, according to the Chinese government.

Pokemon Unite