China gaming crackdown: beloved video game journal ordered to suspend publication, rectify content

A 24-year-old video game journal told subscribers this week that it was suspending publication while rectifying content, as demanded by authorities

Readers bemoaned the suspension online of the much-loved publication, which has signalled a continuation of Beijing’s tough stance on the gaming industry

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Weibo user Heitongguge shares an image of an Ultra Console Game collection on January 3, 2022. The beloved 24-year-old Chinese gaming magazine has been told by authorities to suspend publication while rectifying its content, prompting an outpouring of nostalgia on social media. Photo: Weibo

Published: 9:00pm, 10 Feb 2022

One of the largest gaming-focused magazines in China has suspended publication after regulators ordered it to make rectifications to its content, in another sign of Beijing’s enhanced regulation over the country’s video game industry.

Ultra Console Game, a popular 24-year-old gaming magazine, sent a text message to subscribers on Tuesday explaining that it would undergo “deep rectification” of its content, as demanded by regulatory authorities. Print publication has been suspended, it said, and no date has been specified for its return. However, an electronic edition will still be published through its app in mid-February, the publication said.

The magazine must “change its registration and postpone publication”, it said in response to an inquiry from the South China Morning Post on Thursday through its official account on the microblogging platform Weibo. It gave no further explanation of required rectification measures.

Founded in 1998 and sponsored by the state-backed Science and Technology Association in north-central Gansu province, Ultra Console Game has grown into a semi-monthly magazine with a circulation of more than 300,000, according to its website. It focuses on video game consoles and titles published for those platforms.

It is registered as a science journal and approved by the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA).

The suspension comes as Beijing has intensified scrutiny of the country’s gaming industry over the past several months. China is home to the world’s largest video games market, with an estimated revenue of US$49.3 billion in 2021.

A fresh video game crackdown that kicked off last August has clouded the industry’s growth prospects. That month, Beijing announced that gamers under the age of 18 would be limited to playing only between the hours of 8pm and 9pm on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and statutory holidays. It was a significant escalation in the government’s effort to fight video game addiction.