Beijing video game regulators really know the industry, despite tech crackdown, says founder of gaming powerhouse XD
- XD CEO Huang Yimeng said Chinese regulators are ‘very well-versed with the video games industry’, despite a crackdown that has left the industry reeling
- XD, operator of the TapTap games store, has grown rapidly since its 2019 IPO, but revenues are down this year as it awaits approval for its own titles
Beijing understands video games better than most people think, despite an ongoing industry crackdown, according to the co-founder of the Chinese gaming powerhouse XD, which is seeking to upend mobile game distribution with its zero-commission digital store.
In an interview with the South China Morning Post, XD co-founder and CEO Huang Yimeng said he remains optimistic about the future of video games in China, despite recent regulatory hurdles casting a pall over his company’s future. To Huang, though, Chinese gaming regulators are not fumbling in the dark, wreaking uncalculated havoc on the industry, as they are sometimes perceived.
“We interact a lot with the regulators,” Huang said. “In fact, regulators in China today are very well-versed with the video games industry.”
When Beijing outlined many new “red lines” for game developers this year, further restricting the type of content they can produce, it sent a chill through China’s gaming industry. At XD, losses have been mounting, and the company has been left waiting on approvals for its four self-developed games in China.
But the 38-year-old Huang said regulators understand both blockbuster games and his primary area of the industry, indie games, or smaller titles created by independent developers.
“They are very clearly aware of what indie games are, as well as the standards we use to measure them,” Huang said. “They also pay attention to gamers’ feedback and so they understand what gamers like or do not like.”
