Video games in China

An internet café in Tongyang Town, the county seat of Tongshan County, Hubei

At the time that the video game industry was being established in North America in the 1970s, China was in the midst of major political and economic reform following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. The country was technologically behind much of the rest of the world in terms of its media. Part of the reform was modernization of its media systems, helping to boost economic prosperity for citizens.[4] As such, China saw little of arcade games or the first generation of home consoles, like the Atari 2600.

After the video game crash of 1983 which devastated the North American video game market, Japan became a dominant factor in the global market leading off the third generation of consoles such as Nintendo's Famicom. By this point, China's economy had significantly improved, and Japan started to make inroads into selling consoles into China.[4] However, importing these into China was costly, with a 130% tariff on hardware and games along with value-added taxes.[4] Console systems were in high demand, but because of the high costs of importing, only few foreign companies did so. This created the video game clone grey market in China – manufacturing of reverse-engineered consoles and games at much lower costs than imported system, even if this required dubious or illegal copyright infringement. Outright copyright theft ("piracy") was also rampant in China due to the country's poor intellectual property controls.[4] The sales of cloned console hardware and games outpaced that of legitimate imports, and further drove many foreign companies away since they could not compete with this area, such that by the 1990s, most video game systems in China were manufactured there.[4]

Console games continued to grow in popularity through the 1990s, which created a broader concern in the media of video game addiction, with terms like "digital heroin" being used to describe video games.[4] Even before the 1990s, there had been a broader stance in China that video games created negative effects on those that played them, which only grew during this decade. The impact on youth was particularly of concern, as video games were known to detract students from schoolwork, leaving them unprepared to enter China's college system.[4] This situation was partially created by China's one-child policy, with sibling-less children having few others to interact with and little to do outside of school.[5] The anti-addiction facet also discouraged foreign companies from trying to break into the Chinese market.[4]

The concerns about video game addiction and negative influence on the youth came to a head in June 2000. The State Council passed a bill crafted by seven ministries specifically aimed at video games. The bill established certain provisions on video game content and regulations on operations of Internet cafés and arcades.[4] The most significant facet of this bill was a ban on the production, import, and sale of consoles and arcade machines.[6] This ban was not absolute, as it allowed for some consoles to be released in China, notably Sony's PlayStation 2 in 2004 and several of Nintendo's consoles rebranded under the iQue partnership. However, with the restriction on game imports and their content, these consoles did not catch on in China.[4] The ban did not include games available on personal computers (PC), and as a result, the PC video game market in China flourished over the next fifteen years.[7] Internet cafés flourished, growing from 40,000 in 2000 to over 110,000 by 2002, and have remained numerous since.[4]

The ban on arcade machines was dropped in 2009, but while arcade were permitted to operate, they had to take several safeguards to prevent excessive use by youth.[8] However, since such arcades offered a low-cost way to play games without a PC, they still became a thriving industry comparable to PC gaming at internet cafés. As a result, Chinese gamers frequently visit the arcades to play action games, particularly fighting games, and occasionally unlicensed arcade ports of popular PC or mobile games such as Angry Birds or Plants vs. Zombies.[9]

2006 ChinaJoy

Legitimate acquisition of games and the hardware to play them was still relatively expensive in China, which continued to fuel the video game clone market in China.[10] A large number of PC gamers in China acquired software through illegal downloads and pirated software websites to avoid the cost. Developers of legitimate games in China recognized that, to compete with this black market, they had to develop games that had a free or low upfront cost model but offered a way to monetize their games over time. Many Chinese-developed games became online games offering numerous microtransactions to recoup costs; such games could be offered at Internet cafés, which became a popular option for Chinese players that could not afford computer hardware, even as the price of computing equipment dropped over the next decade. This created a boom of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in the Chinese market and which helped to establish market dominance of companies like Tencent, Perfect World, and NetEase.[10] PC cafés proliferated in urban centers as China's population continued to grow.[7] Western free-to-play and subscription-based games like Dota 2 and World of Warcraft, poised to take advantage of this model, also became successful.[7] It also prompted Chinese developers to develop numerous clones of popular Western games that they would offer at low cost, an issue that still persists presently.[7]

Online gaming became of serious concern to the government around 2007, re-raising the issues of gaming addiction that had prompted the 2000 console ban. A government report claimed that 6% of teenage internet users, amounting to 3.5 million young people, were playing online games more than 40 hours a week.[5] In July 2007, the government required that online game publishers and operates incorporate anti-addiction software on their games, specifically by monitoring how long underaged persons played. If a minor played for more than three hours straight, the game was to wipe half of any in-game currency that had earned that session, and lose all credits if played for more than five hours.[11] Additionally, these systems were required to have the player to log in using their national identification. However, at the time of implementation, not all publishers incorporated the required controls, and for those that did, players would find ways around the limitations, such as using family member IDs, or otherwise would simply play past the time requirements as there was nothing else to do beyond the video game.[5][12]

By 2007, the size of the Chinese video game market was estimated to be about US$1.7 billion with around 42 million players, having grown 60% from the previous year mostly driven by online gaming.[14][15] At this stage, China's impact on the larger global market, valued at US$41.9 billion, was not considered significant, as much of it was still driven by the grey market for clones and pirated games.[14][16] However, the rapid growth led to forecasts that China would be a major contributor to the global market within five-years time.[14]

Online gaming readily led way to the rise of social network games in China around 2007–2008, given that players were accustomed to free-to-play nature of online gaming. The Chinese game Happy Farm (2008) was included in Wired's list of "The 15 Most Influential Games of the Decade" at #14, for its major influence on global social network games, particularly for having "inspired a dozen Facebook clones", the largest being Zynga's FarmVille.[17] A number of other games have since used similar game mechanics, such as Sunshine Farm, Happy Farmer, Happy Fishpond, Happy Pig Farm,[18][19] Farm Town, Country Story, Barn Buddy, Sunshine Ranch, and Happy Harvest, as well as parodies such as Jungle Extreme and Farm Villain.[20][21]

This further prepared the China market for mobile games around 2012, where there are about one billion mobile phone subscriptions, according to a United Nations report,[22] and after Apple secured deals to distribute their iPhones within China.[23] Mobile devices in China are less expensive than computer or console hardware, and also provide Internet functionality; for many, they are the only form of Internet connectivity they have, making them popular gaming devices.[24] Mobile games in China grew rapidly over the next several years, growing from about 10% of the Chinese video game market in 2012 to 41% in 2016.[25] This expanded to more than 50% by 2018.[26] Furthering the growth of the social and mobile game markets was the fact that the anti-addiction measures applied to online games did not apply to these types of titles; it was not until 2017 where renewed concerns about mobile titles like Honour of Kings led Tencent to implement a similar anti-addiction system for its portfolio.[27]

Social and mobile gaming significantly grew the Chinese video game market beyond earlier estimates. By 2013, the Chinese market for video games saw nearly a ten-fold growth since 2007, valued at US$13.5 billion of the global US$83 billion,[28] with over 490 million players, counting only those on personal computers; since consoles were still banned, these numbers do not take console players into account.[4]

In 2014, China partially eased the restrictions on video game hardware by allowing game consoles to be manufactured in the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone (FTZ) and sold in the rest of China subject to cultural inspections.[6] In July 2015, the ban on video game consoles within the country was completely lifted. According to a statement from the country's Ministry of Culture, companies like Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft – among others – were now allowed to manufacture and sell video game consoles anywhere in the country.[29]

Microsoft and Sony quickly took advantage of the lifting of the ban, announcing sales of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 platforms within the FTZ shortly after the 2014 announcement. Microsoft established a partnership with BesTV New Media Co, a subsidiary of the Shanghai Media Group, to sell Xbox One units in China,[30] with units first shipping by September 2014.[31] Sony worked with Shanghai Oriental Pearl Media in May 2014 to establish manufacturing in the FTZ,[32] with the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita shipping into China by March 2015.[33] CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Andrew House explained in September 2013 that the company intended to use the PlayStation Vita TV as a low-cost alternative for consumers in an attempt to penetrate the Chinese video game market.[34] Both Microsoft and Sony have identified China as a key market for their next generation of consoles, the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 respectively.[35]

Nintendo did not initially seek to bring the Wii U into China; Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé stated that China was of interest to the company after the ban was lifted, but considered that there were similar difficulties with establishing sales there as they had recently had with Brazil.[36] Later, Nintendo had teamed up with Tencent by April 2019 to help sell and distribute the Nintendo Switch as well as aid its games through the Chinese government approval process led by National Radio and Television Administration.[37][38] The Nintendo Switch went on sale in China on December 10, 2019, though unlike the international version; this unit included several concessions to region-lock it to China.[39] Even with the ban lifted, console sales were slow, as consoles require dedicated space in home and did not have additional functionality, like personal computers, and further slowed by continued popularity of Internet cafés. The hardware grey market also persisted, drawing away legitimate sales of consoles.[40] Of the US$37.9 billion industry revenue in 2018,[41] only about $1 billion was attributed to console sales. It is expected that as interest in legitimate sales of consoles increases in the future, the grey market will wane.[35] Despite official availability of the Switch, imported and grey-market sales of Switch consoles still dominated China; while Nintendo and Tencent reported that a million Switch consoles had been sold by January 2021, the total number of Switch consoles in use within the country was estimated to be at least twice as high due to imported, non-region-locked versions.[42]

In March 2018, after the structural re-organization of State Administration of Radio and Television (SART), over a period of several months, no new game licenses were given out. Further, MOC had made the process of getting these licenses more stringent.[43] This period has significantly impacted Tencent, one of the largest publishers of video games for China. In August 2018, Tencent was forced to pull from sale their version of Monster Hunter World from China as they had not got their license for it and the government received complaints about its content. Tencent were also blocked from publishing personal computer versions of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite Battle Royale. The license freezes was reported to have significant effects on those game publishers and developers that rely on Chinese sales.[43] In late August 2018, the Chinese Ministry of Education called on the Chinese government and SART to also address the growing issue of myopia in children which was attributed to long hours of gaming on small screens like with mobile devices. The Ministry of Education had asked SART to consider placing restrictions on the number of hours each young player can play a game. On news of this, Tencent shares lost 5% of their value, an estimated US$20 billion on the stock market, the next day.[44][45] A further approval route was closed by Chinese authorities in October 2018; this "green channel" route, which had been in place by August 2018, allowed a game to have a period of one month on the market for purposes of consumer testing without having full government approval, but had been seen by game publishers as temporary relief from the current ban. Tencent had been planning on distributing and monetizing from Fortnite Battle Royale via this method before this route was closed.[46]

With China's effective ban of new games continuing into October 2018, Chinese players have found other routes of getting new games, which include using Steam which uses overseas servers.[47] Further, existing titles released before the freeze that continue to offer new content have seen a resurgence in players and spending as a result.[46] To comply with the planned new rules, Tencent announced that all mobile games it manages in China will require users to use their Chinese ID to play. This will be used by Tencent to track the time that minors play the game and implement time limitations on them, among other steps to meet new regulations.[48]

By December 2018, the Chinese government had formed the "Online Game Ethics Committee" falling under the National Radio and Television Administration, which will review all games to be published in China for appropriate content as well as issues related to childhood myopia.[49] The committee, by the end of the year, had restarted the approval process and will be working through a backlog of submissions to review in an expedited manner to allow new games to be released.[50] Initial approvals to 80 back-logged titles was granted within days, but notably lacked games published by Tencent and Netease, the two largest publishers in China.[51] After several more rounds, Tencent had two games approved near the end of January 2019, but did not include either Fortnite Battle Royale or PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, two major titles that were financial drivers in other countries.[52]

A second freeze on approvals started in February 2019, as any further approvals on new games were suspending until the committee has been able to clear the backlog of the titles from the prior freeze. By this point, only about 350 games had been approved from the previous freeze.[53]

According to China's State Administration of Press and Publication, the freezes were put in place as the video game industry had grown too rapidly in China at a rate that passed the capabilities for regulation to keep up. The second freeze that started in February 2019 was to put in place to give regulators a change to tune the game approval process to meet the current market size. The freeze is expected to be lifted in April 2019, alongside a new set of regulations for game approvals. These new changes include limiting the number of games that can be approved each year to around 5,000 games, strictly banning video game clones and games with obscene content, and placing more anti-addiction controls on mobile titles aimed at younger players.[54]

The nearly year-long freeze has had rippling effects on the global video game industry. Whereas in 2017, around 9,600 new games were approved, only around 1,980 were approved within 2018.[55] Tencent had been one of the top 10 companies in the world at the start of 2018, but by October, its stock had dropped in value by 40%, an estimated US$230 billion, and knocked the company out of the top ten.[56] Apple attributed revenue loss in the fourth quarter of 2018 to China's approval freeze, which had also affected mobile video game apps.[57] The freeze was expected to impact total revenues of the video game industry in 2019, with one analysis projecting a decline in revenue from the previous year, the first time in only a decade.[58]

The Chinese government continued to push on restrictions on gaming after the approvals freeze was lifted, asserting its efforts were to restrict the influence of gaming on youth. The government has place restrictions on the amount of time minors can play video games, first in 2019 to 90 minutes per day on weekdays and three hours on weekends,[59] and then to only one hour per day on weekends by 2021.[60] The government has required that all online games to implement strong authentication protocols developed by the government as to track players' time in a game as well.[61] Additionally, the government banned minors under the age of 16 from registering for livestreaming services.[62]

Since March 2021, there had been new pressure on video games, kicked off by statements made by General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping during the annual Two Sessions meetings where he claimed that video games could have a bad influence on the minds of children who are psychologically immature.[63] The government had stopped approval of games starting in August 2021 in an apparent new lockdown related to game content.[64] The continued pressure by the government on the Chinese game sector started to take an effect on the economic valuation of the largest companies. An article published by the state-owned newspaper Economic Information Daily published a report in August 2021 that initially stated that online video games were an "opium for the mind", that gaming addiction was on the rise, and that there should be stronger government regulations. While the article was pulled and later republished without the "opium" statement, its effects caused shares of Tencent to drop by 10% initially that day in trading, though had recovered some after the revised article was published. Similar drops were seen with NetEase and Bilibili.[65] Later in September 2021, when both Tencent and Netease were notified by the government of an upcoming hearing and reminding them than violations of their youth gaming restrictions would be seriously dealt with, both companies' stocks dropped by about 10% due to fears that the government may be clamping down more on gaming in the future, including another potential approvals freeze.[66] Over 200 Chinese game companies, including Tencent and NetEase, signed a statement that month pledging that they will work to regulate youth gaming under the government's new regulations, as well as to enforce new rules relating to games involved "effeminate" portrayal of men in games.[67] As reported by the South China Morning Post, an internal memo sent by the state's gaming trade organization to game companies in September 2021 for purposes of training further clarified that that government saw video games not as "pure entertainment" but as a form of art and thus works that must uphold "a correct set of values" related to China's heritage and culture, and would be more restrictive in what games they would approve within the country.[64] The memo described games that have "blurred moral boundaries", where the player has an option of being good or bad within the game, and suggested that such games may need instead to restrict players to a specific moral path. Further, the memo identified that games that gave a "revisionist" form of history, or appeared more Japanese than Chinese, would likely fail to be approved.[64]

According to the South China Morning Post, the approvals for new games persisted through the end of 2021, and due to the lack of approvals, more than 14,000 game-related companies were deregistered in China through 2021.[68] The approvals freeze was lifted by April 2022 when new approvals were announced.[69] Additionally, players within China reported that the government had modified the country's network so that the international version of Steam was inaccessible from within the country, leaving only the Steam China client with limited selection of games that were already approved by the government.[70] The government also banned the live streaming of unapproved games in April 2022.[71]

A report issued in November 2022 by research firm CNG and the China Game Industry Group Committee, both with strong associations with the Chinese regulatory bodies, stated that the steps taken to reduce youth video game addiction had been working, with more than 70% of the country's youth gaming less than three hours a week. The report suggested that the regulatory bodies should be able to back off on the tight restrictions they had placed on publishers like Tencent and NetEase over the prior few years.[72]

QQ Games is one such popular online client. Growth was driven in part by China's most popular online game, Netease's Fantasy Westward Journey, which now has 1.66 million peak concurrent users. Another contributor is Giant's '"Zhengtu Online, which has 1.52 million peak concurrent users.[81]

Today, the video game market is dominated by the Tencent Games division of Tencent Holdings, which is estimated to contribute to 46% of the overall revenue in China, and nearly 10% of the global video game market as of 2017, making it the largest video game company in the world.[40] NetEase, which contributes to around 15% of overall revenue in China, is the second largest video game company in China, as well as the seventh largest in the world as of 2017.[40][82] Other major players include Perfect World, Shunrong, and Shanda.[40]

These companies are noted for having made aggressive investments in foreign video game developers, particularly from South Korea and the United States, and for making strategic agreements with other entities to serve as the China-based operating arm for foreign interests to meet Chinese government regulations.[40] Notably, Tencent's acquisitions have included: US$400 million to acquire Riot Games in 2011 to gain right to the online game League of Legends and US$8.6 billion for Supercell in 2016 for its mobile game Clash of Clans.[40] Among major investiments include approximately 5% of Activision in 2013,[83] a 40% interest in Epic Games in 2013,[84] and a 5% interest in Ubisoft in 2018.[85]

The 10 largest online game companies by revenue in 2017 are:[80]

1. Tencent: Tencent Games is the Interactive Entertainment Division (aka IED) of Tencent.
2. NetEase: a popular online portal in China, also branched out in the space of MMORPGs with the release of Westward Journey. The game, based on ancient westward travels on the Silk Road (a popular theme from Chinese developed MMORPGs), has gone through two iterations; it was re-released as Westward Journey II due to numerous problems with the initial release, and its game engine was used to develop Fantasy Westward Journey, which is currently the most popular MMORPG in China (based on PCU numbers).[86]
3. YY
4. 37 Interactive
5. Perfect World
6. Elex
7. IGG
8. Alpha Group
9. Century Huatong Group (owner of Shanda). Shanda produces and supports many popular MMORPGs. The company is significant because it introduced a new online payment system with the release of Legend of Mir 2 in 2001. Instead of charging users for the initial purchase of the game, Shanda gave the software away free-of-charge and decided to charge users for time spent playing in game. This payment system specifically counteracted piracy because the company could maintain easier control over the time users spent in the game, rather than attempt to limit the game's distribution.[87] Shanda maintains a large number of MMORPGs in China developed by Western, Korean and native Chinese companies; the latter two regions produce Shanda's most popular games. The company also maintains numerous casual games as well, with platforms supporting chess and other non-persistent world games.[88]
10. Kunlun Tech

The9 (第九城市) is similar to Shanda Entertainment, it specifically maintains and produces MMORPG content for the Chinese gamer base. The9 is notable because of its partnership with Blizzard Entertainment in bringing World of Warcraft (the most popular MMORPG outside of Asia) to China. World of Warcraft is the most popular western MMORPG in Asia, and one of the most popular in China in general. Recent statistics place its peak concurrent users at around 688,000, easily among the top MMORPGs in the country.[89] The9 also implemented a pay-for-time system for the game, which differs from the monthly subscription payment structure used by Blizzard in other territories. In April 2009, World of Warcraft owner Activision Blizzard announced it had selected The9 competitor NetEase to operate the game in China. The9's license expired on June 7, 2009.[90]

In order to gauge the popularity of online games, both in China and internationally, three benchmarks are commonly implemented. The first is peak concurrent users (PCU), which is the maximum numbers of players online simultaneously at a given time. A high PCU number signifies that a game has a large base of constant user participation, which is essential for the survival of an online world. The second statistic used is the daily active player base; this number is essentially a count of the number of disparate users who sign on in a given 24-hour period. This statistic differs from PCU simply because of its longer time span but the daily user base is still a good quantifier of popularity and usage.

The third statistic is simply the total number of registered users for a specific game or service, this statistic is significantly more problematic because most, if not all, online games do not limit the user to a single account or user name. For example, some games claim millions of registered users; a disingenuous statistic given that the most popular MMORPGs in China usually garner only 800,000 to one million peak concurrent users.[91] Thus, while registered user numbers can be quite impressive, they are not as accurate a gauge of popularity as the other aforementioned statistics.

In 2010, there were 25 investments made into Chinese online gaming companies. Of the 25 investments 20 of these deal disclosed financial details. As a group these 20 deals combined for a total of US$137 million in investment.[92]

China has domestically produced a number of games, including Arena of Valor, Westward Journey, The Incorruptible Warrior, and Crazy Mouse. There are a large number of domestically made massively multiplayer online role-playing game MMORPGs in China, although many generally remain unheard of outside of the country.[93][94]

China does have a small but growing indie game scene. The growth of China's indie game scene is considered to have been through hobbyist programmers starting around the 1990s and into the 2000s after the console ban where personal computer games became more popular. An early well-known indie developer, Coconut Island, was founded in the mid-2000s, and through its success, starting a number of game jams around the country starting in 2011, and eventually established the China Indie Game Alliance, one of the country's largest developer communities. Further interest in indie game development came with the popularity of mobile games in the country. The 2014 title Monument Valley developed by Ustwo in the United Kingdom is considered to have been an influential title as it was able to tell an emotional story through the game medium, and drew more interest in the indie game scene.[95] Indie game development is challenged by the governmental approval process, requiring resources that many indie developers do not have.[10] As with mainstream commercial games, indie games must be approved and get a license to be sold, or otherwise may be offered freely, which does not require a license. This has led to a black market around obtaining licenses, using non-China-controlled platforms like Steam to distribute games, or other questionable means to get their game into players' hands.[95] As Valve has been working with Perfect World to create a China-specific client for Steam, which would be limited to games approached by the Chinese government, several indie developers fear this may harm the indie scene within China.[96]

Most of the major video game systems in the world since the 1990s have been manufactured in China; by 2019, 96% of all video game consoles were manufactured in China, generally taking advantage of the net lower-income labor available in the country. Some of the larger manufacturers based in China or with factories within China creating video game consoles include Foxconn, Hosiden, and Flex. Because of this, trade relations between China and other countries can have an impact on video game console pricing.[97] Around 2019, as Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo were preparing their next generation systems, a trade war between the United States and China was threatening to create a 25% import tariff on electronic goods shipped into the U.S. from China, which would have significantly affected the prices of these new consoles. There had already been an impact on personal computer components prior, leading to speculation on the impact on consoles. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo jointly petitioned the U.S. government to not go through with this plan, in addition to other electronics vendors in the U.S. By January 2020, the U.S. government affirmed it had backed off this planned tariff.[98] Despite this, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have all expressed plans to divest some of the Chinese manufacturing to other countries in southeast Asia such as Vietnam.[97]

Video games are regulated through the government and the Chinese Communist Party as with most mass media in China, but further, as video games are seen as a cultural benefit, additional agencies are involved in promoting the growth of video games.

The Ministry of Information Industry (MII) of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国工业和信息化部) was formed in the late 1990s through the integration of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications and the Ministry of Electronics Industry. The agency's primary goals include the regulation and promotion of Chinese telecommunications and software companies which include online gaming. MII is also responsible for a number of initiatives aimed at increasing the number and prominence of natively produced online games. One example of such involvement is the inclusion of online gaming in the 2006–2010 plan for software and information service development.[74]

Listed here are the ministry's stated objectives involving online gaming:[117]

• Study and formulate the state's information industry development strategies, general and specific policies, and overall plans, revitalize the electronics and information products manufacturing, telecommunications and software industries, promote the information economy and society.
• Draw up laws, rules and regulations on electronics and information products manufacturing, telecommunications and software industries, and publish administrative rules and regulations; and supervise the enforcement of laws and administrative rules.
• Work out technical policies, systems and criteria of the electronics and information products manufacturing, telecommunications and software industries, and technical systems and criteria of the radio and television transmission networks; certificate the entry of telecom networking equipment to networks and manage the entry of telecom terminal equipment to networks; direct the supervision and management of electronics and information products quality.
• Propel the research and development of electronics and information products manufacturing, telecommunications and software industries, organize research of major scientific and technological development projects, and digestion, absorption and creation of imported technologies, and promote the industrialization of scientific and technological research results; support the development of native industry.

The ministry is also responsible for a number of initiatives aimed at increasing the number and prominence of natively produced online games. One example of such involvement is the inclusion of online gaming in the 2006–2010 plan for software and information service development.[74]

The General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) (中华人民共和国新闻出版总暑) is responsible for monitoring and regulating publication of print based media, electronic media, and audio-visual products (including online games).[118] GAPP has also been instrumental in combating the growing problem of Internet addiction and game addiction in China by teaming up with eight other government outlets concerned with the growing effect of game play on China's youth. Towards this end, GAPP works with other agencies, including the Central Civilization Office, Ministry of Education, Chinese Communist Youth League, Ministry of Information Industry, Ministry of Public Security, All China Women's Federation, and China's Care for the Next Generation Work Commission.[119] GAPP also initiated the China National Online Game Publication Project in 2004. The intent of the project was to promote native game development through the use of government subsidies to game developers. In its third year, the project is to run through at least 2008, and has provided an estimated 300 million RMB to 16 Chinese game development companies.[120]

China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT; 国家广播电影电视总局) affected the world of Chinese online games in 2004 by instating a blanket ban on computer game related commercials in the state-run media. The only company to directly contradict this ban is Chinese game provider The9, which teamed with Coca-Cola to jointly promote the release of the popular Western MMORPG World of Warcraft in 2005. Besides this instance, the online game market has thrived without much media promotion.[121]

The Beijing Reformatory for Juvenile Delinquents claimed in 2007 that a third of its detainees were influenced by violent online games or erotic websites when committing crimes such as robbery and rape.[122] In a high-profile case from October 2004, 41-year-old Qiu Chengwei was sentenced to death for murdering 26-year-old Zhu Caoyuan over a dispute regarding the sale of a virtual weapon the two had jointly won in the game Legend of Mir 3.[123] Also, in September 2007, a Chinese man in Guangzhou died after playing Internet video games for three consecutive days in an Internet cafe.[124]

As with almost all mass media in the country, video games in China are subject to the national policies of censorship. Content in video games is overseen by SART/NRTA; publishers are required to obtain a license for the game in China from SART before publishing, which may be denied if the game contains elements deemed inappropriate. The process to submit games for a license and put them on sale following that is overseen by MOC.[43] The State General Administration of Press and Publication and anti-porn and illegal publication offices have also played a role in screening games.[125]

Examples of banned games have included:

• Hearts of Iron (for "distorting history and damaging China's sovereignty and territorial integrity")[126]
• I.G.I.-2: Covert Strike (for "intentionally blackening China and the Chinese army's image")[127]
• Command & Conquer: Generals (for "smearing the image of China and the Chinese army")[126]
• Battlefield 4 (for "smearing the image of China and endangering national security")[128]

In addition to banning games completely, several games have had their content screened to remove certain imagery deemed offensive or unfavorable. Common examples include skeletons or skulls being either fleshed out or removed entirely. Cases of which can be seen in Chinese versions of popular video games such as Dota 2 and World of Warcraft.

With the formation of the Online Game Ethics Committee in December 2018, nine titles reportedly were classified as prohibited or to be withdrawn, but this has yet to be confirmed by reliable sources. These included Fortnite, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, H1Z1, Paladins, and Ring of Elysium. Eleven other titles were told that they needed to make corrective action to be sold within China, including Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, and League of Legends.[129]

Publishing a title without having government approval can lead to a company being fined from five to ten times the revenues they earned from the game.[130]

In addition to content control, the Chinese government has pushed technology companies, including video game distributors like Tencent, into allowing the government to have partial ownership of the companies that can be used to affect the content produced; in exchange, such companies may gain a competitive edge over others in interactions dealing with the government.[131]

Along with guidelines to control and eliminate youth gaming issued in September 2021, the Chinese government has also issued a guidelines regarding the presentation of LGBT and "effimininacy" in video games are to be avoided.[132]

China was one of the first countries to recognize the potential for addiction to the Internet, video games, and other digital media, and was the first country to formally classify Internet addiction a clinical disorder by recognizing Clinical Diagnostic Criteria for Internet Addiction in 2008.[133][134] In 2015, the Chinese government also found that more than 500 million citizens over five years old, nearly half the population, suffered from some form of near-sightednessed, and while video games were not solely responsible for this, the government felt they needed to reduce the amount of time youth played video games.[135]

China has sought to deal with addiction to video games by its youth by enacting regulations to be implemented by video game publishers aimed to limit consecutive play time particularly for children. As early as 2005 China's Ministry of Culture has enacted several public health efforts to address gaming and internet related disorders. One of the first systems required by the government was launched in 2005 to regulate adolescents' Internet use, including limiting daily gaming time to 3 hours and requiring users' identification in online video games.[136] In 2007, an "Online Game Anti-Addiction System" was implemented for minors, restricting their use to 3 hours or less per day. The ministry also proposed a "Comprehensive Prevention Program Plan for Minors’ Online Gaming Addiction" in 2013, to promulgate research, particularly on diagnostic methods and interventions.[137] China's Ministry of Education in 2018 announced that new regulations would be introduced to further limit the amount of time spent by minors in online games.[138][139] While these regulations were not immediately binding, most large Chinese publishers took steps to implement the required features. For example, Tencent restricted the amount of time that children could spend playing one of its online games, to one hour per day for children 12 and under, and two hours per day for children aged 13-18.[140] This is facilitated by tracking players via their state-issued identification numbers. This has put some pressure on Western companies that publish via partners in China on how to apply these new anti-addiction requirements into their games, as outside of China, tracking younger players frequently raises privacy concerns. Specialized versions of games, developed by the Chinese partner, have been made to meet these requirements without affecting the rest of the world; Riot Games let its China-based studio implement the requirements into League of Legends for specialized release in China.[141]

A new law enacted in November 2019 limits children under 18 to less than 90 minutes of playing video games on weekdays and three hours on weekends, with no video game playing allowed between 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. These are set by requiring game publishers to enforce these limits based on user logins. Additionally, the law limits how much any player can spend on microtransactions, ranging from about $28 to $57 per month depending on the age of the player.[59] In September 2020, the government implemented its own name-based authentication system to be made available to all companies to uphold these laws.[61] Chinese regulators further reduced the amount of time minors are allowed to play online games in August 2021 to one hour each day on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as well as on public holidays, from 8 to 9 pm.[60] The measures also capped how much minors could spend on such games, with those between 8 and 16 limited to 200 yuan per month, and those between 16 and 18 to 400 yuan per month.[142] Implementation measures were not described as part of this regulation.[60][143] In September 2021, GAPP launched a website that allowed for any Chinese citizen to report on games that appeared to be in violation of these anti-addiction measures, classified between those that failed to perform proper identity checks, those that failed limit minors' hours, and those that failed to limit minors' spending within the game.[142]

Most of the large publishers in China routinely collect data on players and how they play their game. One primary reason is that this is information that may be mandated by the government due to its mass surveillance programs and for implementing systems such as for the anti-addiction measures. Secondly, many of these large companies not only provide video games but a range of media across the spectrum including online video, music, and books, and these companies couple that data to have better reach of targeted advertising as to increase revenues.[40] There are fears, but no reported cases, of these large companies sharing data with the government from foreign users.[40] These fears have had impacts for companies that are fully or partially controlled by Chinese companies. For example, Epic Games in 2018 released its own digital storefront, the Epic Games Store which came under some criticism by players in the West, partially due to fear that Epic would share their data with Tencent and subsequently to the Chinese government, and have called the Store spyware.[144][145]

With the rising success of online games from 2007 onwards, some foreign companies sought to invest full or partial ownership of Chinese companies to help capture a portion of the growing market. The Chinese government, concerned that these foreign companies would have influence on how the Chinese companies manage their video games, passed a law that banned any foreign company from investing or having any type of ownership in a Chinese company, with the General Administration of Press and Publication serving as the watchdog for such violations.[146][43] This still allows for foreign companies to bring games into China, but only through operating agreements and partnerships with wholly owned Chinese companies. For example, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft, an extremely popular MMO in China, was run initially through The9[lower-alpha 1] and later by NetEase, both companies making necessary changes to parts of the game to adhere to Chinese content regulations.[7]

China introduced a pilot version of its first content rating system in December 2020, the "Online Game Age-Appropriateness Warning" system. It uses three color-based classifications, green for "8+" (games appropriate for ages 8 and up), blue for "12+", and yellow for "16+". Games with online components are required to display these labels on packaging, their website, registration pages, and other relevant materials, The rating system was developed by the Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association alongside Tencent and NetEase and 52 other organizations.[148]