Over 15,000 games were removed from China’s iOS store ahead of the country’s deadline for app registration, which came into effect on August 1st. All games now require an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) or approved publishing number from China’s National Press and Publication Administration. As of August 2nd, Apple has removed nearly 30,000 apps from China’s iOS store for not following these guidelines.
While the policy mandating that all games must have a valid ISBN number was passed back in 2016, Apple has been slow to enforce this regulation. David Ahmad, a senior analyst with Niko Partners, explained in correspondence with VentureBeat that Apple began removing apps starting July 1st. Ahmad expects thousands more to be purged moving forward.
Although China is easily the world’s number one mobile game market—with Apple itself having raked in over $12.6 billion from China’s iOS store in 2019—Niko Partners believes that Apple will probably not see a significant decrease in their mobile revenue as a result of this policy. Niko Partners notes that 97 out of the Chinese Apple Store’s top 100 grossing games are properly licensed, so they will likely remain in operation pending further changes.
Acquiring an ISBN or approved publishing number is both difficult and time-consuming, so foreign app developers may encounter some difficulty porting over to China. Cocos, a publisher also known for its scrip development tool Cocos Creator, released a five-minute video detailing the process of getting an app approved for the Chinese mobile market.
Firstly, publishers of any kind of media—movies, games, books, etcetera—must be approved by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee and Ministry of Culture and Tourism. These publishing companies must be totally Chinese-owned, and game publishers are required to have additional certificates and licensing in order to publish games online.
After signing with a publisher, foreign app developers will need to get their app approved and copyrighted, which will take up to 30 business days. Then, they’ll need to go through the material and make sure that the app’s content conforms to the National Press and Publication Administration (NPAA)’s guidelines. Next, app developers will need to receive an ISBN number by having their publisher appeal to the NPAA. This can take up to 80 business days.
The appeal process is intensive and requires extensive documentation, various explanations of the app, who developed it, its performance in the global market, and so on and so forth. With an application process this intensive, it’s no wonder Apple has purged so many apps from the Chinese Apple Store.
Source: VentureBeat
