China has issued a new batch of licenses to publish foreign games for PC, mobile, and consoles. Some of them will be released in the country by Tencent and NetEase.
Chinese version of Merge Mansion
As reported by Reuters, China’s National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) recently issued licenses to 27 games.
The full list, which includes 22 mobile titles, several PC games, and one project for Nintendo Switch, is available on the agency’s official website. Here are some notable names:
- Gorogoa — a puzzle game created by Jason Roberts, which received widespread acclaim from critics and won several awards;
- Yo-kai Watch 4 — a Japanese RPG from Level-5;
- Wizard of Legend — a roguelike dungeon crawler by Contingent99, with more than 500,000 units sold globally.
- Merge Mansion — a mobile merge game from Metacore with 34.8 million downloads and $171.9 million in revenue (via AppMagic);
- Spring Valley — a mobile farm game developed by Playkot with 4.1 million downloads and $4.2 million in revenue;
- Uma Musume Pretty Derby — a horse racing/life sim hit game from Cygames, which was is on track to hit $2 billion in lifetime revenue;
- Audition: Everybody Party — a new mobile game based on the Audition IP, a popular Japanese free-to-play dance game;
- Some games on the list are new products based on famous manga series such as Fairy Tail, The Seven Deadly Sins, and Cardcaptor Sakura.
Merge Mansion will be published in China by Tencent. XD Inc. will publish Gorogoa and Wizard of Legend, and NetEae will release Audition.
The NPPA started approving new games again in April 2022. However, foreign developers and publishers were still unable to enter the Chinese market despite the end of a 263-day licensing freeze, the longest since 2018. In December, the government finally approved 45 foreign titles, including Valorant, GWENT, and Pokémon Unite.
