The first quarter of 2023 has been positive for China video game approvals and Niko Partners expects total game licenses for the full year to surpass 1,100, returning to a level last seen in 2020. The National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), the government regulator responsible for issuing game licenses (ISBNs) approved 288 games in Q1 [...]
Three years ago, in early 2020, Wuhan announced the closure of the city due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Three months into my family’s confinement as residents of Wuhan I wrote “A personal account of gaming and life in Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak” to share my story about gaming during the initial Wuhan lockdown with Niko’s [...]
Did you know that esports has entered its golden jubilee this year? It has been 50+ years since the first-ever esports event took place at Stanford University in 1972 when 24 players competed in an Intergalactic Spacewar tournament, and the winner received a year’s subscription to the Rolling Stone magazine. Fast forward to 2023, technological advancement [...]
Sony Interactive Entertainment Shanghai held a press conference on November 22 where it announced the third phase of its China Hero Project. The China Hero Project is an initiative from Sony launched in 2016 to provide funding and resources to Chinese developers for them to bring games to the PlayStation platform for China and global markets. [...]
Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase confirmed on November 17 that the publishing license covering several Blizzard developed titles in mainland China will not be renewed when it expires on January 23, 2023. This will cause the shutdown of World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone, Diablo III, Warcraft III, Heroes of the Storm and StarCraft titles in mainland China [...]
Harry Potter: Magic Awakened, which launched in mainland China (first market worldwide) on iOS, Android, and PC on September 9, 2021 has had the most successful video game launch of this year in the country. Harry Potter: Magic Awakened was developed by NetEase with support from Portkey Games and is an RPG game with card-based combat that takes place in the Harry Potter universe [...]
The 19th China Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference (ChinaJoy) took place July 30 - August 2, 2021, with a theme “Create Dreams with Technology and Win the Future with Fun.” There were more than 500 exhibitors across the B2B and B2C segments, nearly 30% of which were foreign, that displayed games, hardware, accessories, and new technological [...]
Sony Interactive Entertainment Shanghai announced April 29th that it will launch the PlayStation 5 in Mainland China on May 15, 2021. The disc version of the PS5 will cost RMB 3,899 and the digital version will cost RMB 3,099. Sony announced that it was currently preparing Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (Sony), Sackboy: A Big Adventure [...]
China bans fundraising through ICOs China has banned and made illegal the practice of raising funds through digital token based initial coin offerings (ICO). The rise of cryptocurrencies has led to $2.2 billion having been raised through ICOs this year alone. Chinese regulators have described initial coin offerings as “a form of unapproved illegal public financing” [...]
Chinese Overseas Investments Now Restricted China has tightened the reins on external investment to combat rising debt ratios for domestic companies. One of the “restricted” areas is “entertainment." We are not lawyers, but this seems to include digital gaming. We will work with our friends at Pillar Legal to sort out what it really means for [...]
