In sy the biggest one-day cleanup, Apple removed 39,000 games from its China store as part of a crackdown games without a government license in the country.
According to Reuters, the news is not a big surprise. appeal has removed about 30,000 programs from the Chinese App Store during the summer, and warned more would be removed if they dinot received official approval by the end of June. That deadline was then extended to 31 December. Only 74 of the top 1,500 paid games are left after yesterday’s clearing, en aamong the games involved are Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Identity and NBA 2K20, according to restresearch firm Qimai.
Getting a game approved in China is a long, arduous task for many Western publishers. In essence, they need to obtain a Chinese ISBN number from the government—A process that is almost impossible unless foreign developers according to a Chinese publisher before launch Engadget. Previously, the Financial Times reports that app developers were allowed to purchase their games in the App Store while awaiting an official license. Not anymore.
The biggest thing here is that although games were the vast majority of the applications, this was not the case only one. A total of 46,000 programs were installed. This follows a long trend that Apple is bowing to pressure from the Chinese government regarding applications allowed in the App Store. Last year, Apple Delete an app used by Hong Kong protesters detect police after China said Apple was part of ‘illegal acts’. About the same time, It also has removed the Quartz news program from the China store due to the publication coverage of the Hong Kong protests. Back in 2015, even Apple she blocked own news app from loading in China.
G / O Media can get a commission
Apple should always tread carefully with respect to China. It’s not just the second largest market, but Apple’s supply chain is also strongly dependent on Chinese factories. (It eventually led to some delays in Apple’s 2020 product launches, especially the iPhone 12, due to the pandemic.) The trade war between America and China also led the company to consider moving from 15-30% of its production capacity outside China.
That said, iIt’s not clear why Apple suddenly has to strictly comply with a Chinese licensing law that has been in place since 2016. Android app stores, such as those run by Tencent and Huawei, have complied with the law in the past. The Financial Times suggests that this has something to do with increasing tensions with the US and China, which will lead the latter to increase the investigation into Apple. Whatever the reason, it does not appear to be Apple ‘s bottom line. According to the FT, Apple is likely to lose only about $ 340 million in sales, as most of the biggest games are already licensed.