China's game censorship organ tightening up standards starting next month

The folks at SAPPRFT, China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television, may work for a government organ with a ridiculously inefficient name, but that doesn’t mean they don’t like efficiency. They like it a lot. And although the name might suggest otherwise, SAPPRFT’s supervisory jurisdiction also includes online games, and it’s aiming to clean up the submission and approval process.

(See: China releases censorship rules for consoles, and there are a lot of them)

Specifically, the organization has issued a directive to all its provincial sub-branches, outlining new rules for the verification of foreign online games’ application materials when they’re applying to be permitted to operate in China. The new rules will go into effect on June 1.

Reading between the lines of the new rules, it sounds as though some of SPPRFT’s branches may have been allowing companies to get away with submitting incomplete application materials. The document specifies quite clearly that in addition to several application documents that need to be filled out thoroughly, applying game companies must also provide a complete copy of their game and game client as well as access to its servers and a trial account with all in-game functions and abilities completely unlocked.

(See: China declares Battlefield 4 illegal)

Needless to say, any report of a more strict approval process sounds like censorship to China’s gamers, who aren’t particularly amused by the news. As one commenter wrote:

Since the days of court eunuchs, China has loved castrating things.

On Chinese gaming site 17173’s version of the story, all but four of the 43 respondents in the post-article poll voted the news “disgusting”.

(via 17173)