Chinese gaming firms focus on quality, regulatory approvalwww.wanmei.com 2019-01-08
Visitors play the Honor of Kings, one of the most popular games in China, at the Game Time International Asia China Expo at Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province in September 2018. Photo: VCG
The number of approvals for games releases in China is limited, so competition among Chinese game companies or with foreign game companies is not only about quality but also about winning approval, industry insiders said.
The comments came after a report on China's mobile game quality issued by Tencent's game testing platform, WeTest on Monday. The report noted population of Chinese gaming users has reached saturation, leading to slow market growth.
The growth rate of the Chinese gaming sales decreased from 23 percent in 2017 to 5.3 percent last year, according to another industry report jointly released by research institution GameLook and CGIGC.
A senior industry analyst based in Beijing, who asked to remain anonymous, said the industry will head to a quality-driven development direction.
He added that there will be a higher growth rate for the industry in 2019 than in 2018.
Despite the gradual disappearance of the gaming demographic dividend, the National Radio and Television Administration gave the industry a boost at the end of 2018, approving 80 games for release after a nine-month freeze.
Licenses for new games were suspended at the beginning of March 2018 and tightened restrictions were imposed on game companies, for instance, regulating the number of games to be approved and calling for less time spent by young people on games.
Xiao Hong, CEO of Chinese game company Perfect World, said restrictions were positive for the industry, leading to ordered and sustainable development.
The new regulations may be stricter with fewer approvals each time, a former administrator of a well-known Chinese video game community surnamed Liu told the Global Times.
"Some games with violent or pornographic elements will be rejected even if they are innovative or of high quality," he said. In other cases, games may be reissued after modification. He said there's a risk that Chinese games may become more homogenous and lack creativity.
Intense competition occurs among Chinese game companies, as well as with foreign game developers. An industry insider, who requested anonymity, told the Global Times earlier that foreign video game publishers and developers were eager to kick off new business projects in China.
China's gaming market is the world's largest, boasting approximately 626 million users with sales of 214.4 billion yuan ($31 billion) in 2018, a 5.3 percent increase compared with 2017, people.cn reported.
