China’s extended freeze on new video game licences is set to enter its ninth month, raising speculation that this could surpass the previous record length of delay, which would put more pressure on the market and its many small developers , according to industry insiders and recent local media reports. Some firms in the industry had hoped that the suspension of new licences could be lifted in April, while others expected the process to be in limbo until this autumn, according to a video gaming company executive, who declined to be identified because he is not authorised to speak to the media. He said the licensing freeze remains “the biggest talking point” in the industry. The National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), which is in charge of licensing video games in China, has not published a list of approved new titles since July 22 last year . As of Tuesday, the latest freeze in new game approvals marked its eighth month, without any signal from the regulator on when the licensing process would resume. The NPPA has never officially commented on the issue. Earlier this month, an unidentified official from the state-backed China Game Publishers Association Publications Committee said talks about the resumption of the licensing process in April “is not true”, according to a report by Chinese daily newspaper the 21st Century Business Herald . On speculation that there will not be any new video game titles approved this year, an unidentified NPPA official was cited by local media in February as saying that the regulator continues to accept applications. Still, this official did not comment on when new licences would be issued again. With no relief in sight, the current NPPA delay could potentially mark China’s longest suspension of new game licences since a nine-month hiatus in 2018 that followed a regulatory reshuffling. That previous licensing freeze was also initiated to help combat gaming addiction among the country’s youth. Since May 2019, the NPPA has typically announced newly licensed games either in the middle or at the end of each month. Between 80 to 100 games are usually approved each month. The regulator issued 755 new licences last year, or about half of those granted in 2020. ‘Two sessions’ delegates propose more gaming restrictions for China The continued uncertainty over the resumption of NPPA’s licensing process has resulted in a new wave of job cuts and delayed projects in China’s video gaming industry, which is the world’s largest with total revenue of 296.5 billion yuan (US$46.6 billion) in 2021. Small and medium-sized gaming studios have been hit particularly hard by the latest suspension of new licence approvals, according to You Haokun, a senior analyst at research firm LeadLeo. About 14,000 small studios and video gaming-related firms – including those involved in merchandising, advertising and publishing – have shut down and been deregistered in the five months from July 2021, according to a report by state-run newspaper Securities Daily , which cited data from business registry tracking firm Tianyancha. That number signified a considerable acceleration from the 18,000 video gaming-related firms that went out of business throughout 2020. Video game journal suspends publication amid China’s gaming crackdown Even some of the larger companies in the industry have been negatively affected by the NPPA’s inaction on new game applications. Shanghai-based conglomerate Perfect World , which runs the third-largest video gaming business in China, said in a statement in January that hundreds of people left the company in the fourth quarter last year as part of its “optimisation” drive – a term used to commonly describe lay-offs. Other big Chinese gaming firms, meanwhile, have set their sights on expanding overseas. William Ding Lei, founder and chief executive of No 2 video gaming company NetEase , said in late February that the company would launch an overseas version of its hit mobile game, Harry Potter: Magic Awakened , in the middle of this year, while drawing up plans to develop games for consoles such as the PlayStation and Xbox. “Both domestic and foreign [markets] are very important, but the foreign [market] will be our focus,” Ding said.