Mobile game devs are very pissed about China’s new censorship rules

A little over a month ago, Chinese censorship bureau SAPPRFT announced new rules that require every mobile game launched in China to be pre-approved by SAPPRFT (already-launched games will have to get retroactive approval before the grace period ends in October). Before the rules had even gone into effect, developers and analysts alike were predicting things could be bad, and that the rules might dismantle China’s indie mobile gaming scene entirely.

An individual taking on SAPPRFT in courts has about as much chance of winning as a five-year-old would have of beating LeBron James.

Now, we’re barely seven days into the new system, and many of those fears seem well-founded. Developers are already raging against the machine.

Case in point: one developer’s rant has gone viral in the Chinese web after their game was supposedly rejected by SAPPRFT for containing English words. Not offensive English words, mind you, but completely innocuous ones like “mission start” and “warning.” “I’m really fucking surprised,” wrote the developer of the rejection.

Another developer confirmed that their game had been rejected for the same reason: including English words like “go” and “lucky.” SAPPRFT’s rules also forbid the use of traditional Chinese characters.

Very soon, mobile gaming in China could include a lot less games.

Developers are also complaining that the process is taking longer than it’s meant to. SAPPRFT’s rules specify that developers should get a response within 30 days, but the first developer whose game was rejected for including English also said that their company didn’t get a response from regulators for four months.

Another mobile game developer is taking his anger to the next level. Indie dev Chen Yu has told Sixth Tone he will sue SAPPRFT over the new rules. “With these new regulations, all independent game developers and small enterprises will be driven out of the market, with no glimmer of hope for survival,” Chen said. Abiding by the regulations is simply too difficult and too expensive to make indie game development a worthwhile enterprise.

We could be facing a future where China’s mobile game catalogue consists only of games produced by powerful corporations.

Chen has virtually no hope of winning, of course – that’s something both he and his lawyers agree on. An individual taking on a government body like SAPPRFT in the Chinese court system has about as much chance of winning as a five-year-old would have of beating LeBron James in a one-on-one. Still, they say they hope the lawsuit will bring attention and spark a discussion on the new rules and the effect they’re having on the game industry, and particularly on indie developers.

Chen sees the suit as a potential watershed moment for the gaming industry, and it will be interesting to see whether he’s right. SAPPRFT has intervened in industries to tighten restrictions many times before, but this is the first time in recent memory that new SAPPRFT laws could potentially choke an entire sector of startups and SMEs out of business entirely.

China’s mobile game developers, and more importantly Chinese mobile game fans, will have to decide if that’s something they can live with. It’s not clear what any layman could effectively do to limit SAPPRFT’s power, but if nothing changes, we could be facing a future where China’s entire mobile game catalogue consists only of the games produced by powerful corporations like Tencent and Netease, with no room for startups and indies.