China Ends Eighteen-Month Freeze On Imported Games

China to import 45 foreign video games, grants multiple licences。The list of games includes big hitters like Valorant and Pokemon Unite, although Tencent says it doesn’t expect Beijing to return to its old ways of granting hundreds of licenses a year anytime soon.

Moves mark the latest easing of rigid curbs that have hammered China’s gaming industry since August last year.

Recently, Chinese state media has been shifting its position towards video games, which has been broadly negative for some time now. Last month, for instance, an article on the Chinese state-run People’s Daily news site declared that video games could be a force for cultural good, seemingly softening if not outright reversing Beijing’s previous frosty opposition towards gaming.

a day after Chinese authorities granted publishing licences， South Korean gaming stocks, including Netmarble Corp, NCSOFT, Krafton, Kakao Games and Devsisters, jumped 2-17 percent in the coming morning trade.

The list of imported games includes Pokemon Unite, a Nintendo property, and Valorant, developed by American studio Riot Games. Both titles were created in conjunction with the Chinese giant Tencent, but they technically count as imported games rather than native ones. The 45-strong list also includes survival favorite Don’t Starve and card battler Gwent: The Witcher Card Game, according to Reuters.

In China, there are strict timing curbs that restricted minors to playing for just one hour on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and national holidays.

Regulators resumed issuing game licenses to homegrown games in April, and the approval of foreign games was seen as the last regulatory curb to be removed.

Unlike in most other countries, video games need approval from regulators before their release in China, the world’s largest gaming market.