China’s government must pre-approve every single mobile game starting July 1

If you’re a mobile game developer interested in the Chinese market, you’ve got about a month before your life gets more annoying.

That’s because our old friends at the State Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film, and Television (SAPPRFT) are at it again, this time tightening their grip on mobile gaming. On Thursday, the government organ issued new rules that will take effect July 1st, requiring that all mobile games be submitted to SAPPRFT for pre-approval at least 20 business days before being put online.

This is true, by the way, regardless of what kind of game you’ve made. The rules are even stricter if you’ve made a story-based game, especially one that touches on political or military topics. But even completely innocuous, story-less games like endless runners will have to submit their game, approval application, and the relevant licenses and permits to provincial authorities 20 days in advance.

The game goes through the sort of ridiculous, inefficient process that only a government body could come up with

From there, the game goes through the sort of ridiculous, inefficient-sounding process that only a government body could come up with. First, provincial authorities take five work days to assess the completeness and accuracy of the application. Then they send that, along with their written recommendation, to the national SAPPRFT office, which takes ten business days to make the final yes/no decision. That decision is then sent back to provincial authorities, who then have an addition three business days to inform the game developer of the decision.

Assuming the reply was yes, the developer can then launch their game, but that’s not the end of it. Within seven days of launching the game, the developer must get in touch with provincial authorities again to report when the game was launched, where it can be downloaded, and a host of other details. If you don’t launch within 20 business days of the date you originally registered to launch your game on, you also have to get in touch with authorities to let them know why.

SAPPRFT has been having a pretty busy year, and these new mobile gaming rules are just the latest in a string of control-tightening measures. Previously this year, SAPPRFT tightened the rules for TV shows, nixed Apple’s iBooks and iTunes Movies, took down an internet celebrity for swearing, and banned foreign companies from publishing creative works online.

Love them or hate them, you’ve got to hand it to them. That’s an awful lot of censorship to squeeze into less than half a year.