China starts 2024 with approval of 115 game titles, a recent record high

China started 2024 by greenlighting 115 new game titles in January, making it the biggest batch of approvals in over 18 months, the South China Morning Post reported.

These approvals continue a trend of friendly gestures toward the games industry, with regulators earlier backtracking from a proposed plan that caused stocks for major Chinese gaming firms like Tencent Holdings and NetEase to plummet.

The official that oversaw the proposal, which looked to limit user spending in games and restrict the rewards used to entice gamers, was removed.

The new batch of approved titles include a mobile game co-designed by Tencent and the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Despite recent uncertainties, more games were actually approved in 2023 than the year before. A total of 1,076 titles got licenses for the world’s largest game market, doubling the 512 titles granted in 2022. This happened after the industry recovered from an eight-month licensing freeze.

After starting clampdowns that affected various sectors since 2021, China has been reversing course. It has embarked on measures to boost economic growth and ease jitters about the lack of growth in the country’s exports and consumption.

See also: Meet the 100 top-funded startups and tech companies in China

This article was written with the help of AI.