China is approving games again for the first time since July 2021

For the first time since July 2021, China has re-opened its videogame approval arm. This means that Chinese developers can publish games in the country again. It puts to an end the nine-month freeze on game approval in China, which negatively impacted tech giants such as NetEase Inc and Tencent as well as putting many smaller companies out of business.

Thanks to Reuters, we know that 45 games were granted publishing licenses on April 11, bringing the nine-month freeze to an abrupt end. This includes new games from studios such as Baidu, iDreamSky, 37Games, and more. Presumably, too, western developed games could now apply for publishing in China.

The news has seen “U.S.-listed shares of Chinese gaming firms NetEase Inc and Bilibili Inc” jump by “8% and 8.6%, respectively, in premarket trading.” China originally froze its game monetization license approval system around the time of the government imposing “new gaming time limits on under-18s,” which was needed, apparently, “to pull the plug on a growing addiction to what it once described as ‘spiritual opium.’”

Now that Chinese development studios are able to release games in China again, we might see a number of them head west after some further development time required for localization. Any game that was planned to release in China first before heading overseas would have been put on hold since last July. This has come to an end today. It’s a big deal for Chinese developers and for gamers in the country.