Key highlights:
After imposing a ban on online video games, Reuters reports that China has now approved the release of 80 games. The report notes that the list of approved titles were listed on the website of the State Administration of Press Publication, Radio, Film and Television. One notable omission was Tencent Holdings, the publisher behind popular games like PUBG Mobile.
It was reported that 20 games were assessed by China’s Online Gaming Ethics Review Committee, and 9 out of the 20 were banned. This included PUBG, as well as Fortnite. According to the report, PUBG was banned due to “blood and gore,” whereas Fortnite was banned for “blood and gore, vulgar content.” The remaining 11 games on the list required corrective actions. For example, Blizzard’s Overwatch reportedly required corrective action and the cause given was that the “game visuals promote incorrect values, inharmonious chatroom.” Diablo on the other hand has “inharmonious chat, game missions include fraud” and hence needs corrective action.
PUBG Mobile has become quite the moneymaker for Tencent, with the game seeing a revenue boost of 166 percent during Black Friday week, surpassing Fortnite on iOS. Tencent recently noted that the month of November garnered $32.5 million in revenue. This was the game’s highest total revenue for a single month. This also marked a 44 percent increase from the previous month, during which it raked in $25.7 million. This was the previous best for the mobile game.
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