20,000 iOS games could be removed in China, report says
An AppInChina report says a third of China’s paid games on the iOS App Store won’t have a license before a key deadline
Apple’s new rules for game developers in China could see tens of thousands of games removed from the iOS App Store, according to a new report.
While Chinese iOS users could lose access to thousands of games, the biggest titles like local versions of Tencent hits Arena of Valor and PUBG Mobile are already covered.
“Most of those high-grossing games already have a game license, so are unlikely to be affected by this change,” AppInChina CEO Rich Bishop told us.
Bishop said the gaming industry is top-heavy, meaning that a large share of the revenue is being generated by a relatively small number of blockbuster games. But he stressed that the license check could be a death sentence for certain medium- and small-scale mobile games, many of which generate revenue in China without a local partner.
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AppInChina expects the change to be a blow to revenue for both game developers and Apple, even though the most lucrative games will remain. Apple takes a 30 per cent cut of all app sales and in-app purchases on iOS. And according to data by App Annie, gross revenue from the Chinese iOS App Store reached US$8.8 billion in 2019.
Apple declined to comment for this story.
“It takes four to eight months to get a game license, and [the government] issued a total of just 1,572 game licenses in 2019,” Bishop said. “This means that the vast majority of the 21,563 paid games or games with in-app purchases on the Apple App Store [in] China won’t be able to get a game license for several years, let alone by June 30th, 2020.”
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