The "gray" market of console games in China has been hit. One of the online retailers stopped selling them

Last week, one of the largest retailers in China JD.com refused to sell unlicensed console titles. This happened against the background of increased measures to regulate the industry.What happened?

The South China Morning Post reported that JD.com will withdraw 86 games from sale.

Among them are The Last of Us Part II, Super Mario Maker 2, FIFA 21, as well as all parts of the Call of Duty and GTA series.

Earlier JD.com I withdrew the game from sale only after the relevant authorities applied. However, now the retailer has gone ahead of the curve and decided not to allow certain projects to be sold even before the claims from the authorities.

Representatives JD.com they stated that such purges and removals of games from the trading platform will now become the norm and will be carried out regularly.

Why did the rateler take such measures?Actions JD.com coincided with the new restrictions on the playing time of teenagers, which were adopted last week.

According to them, persons under the age of 18 can play only three hours a week. 

Perhaps, against the background of these events, the store wanted to demonstrate its loyalty to the Party’s course.

What should I keep in mind?Today, most of the Chinese gaming market operates in the so-called “legal gray zone”.

Most Western console titles do not have a local license, which means they do not have permission to distribute.

Chinese gamers bypass this restriction by buying games and consoles either on foreign trading platforms, or using the services of “gray” importers.

In

other words, we can say that due to the difficulties of obtaining licenses for legal distribution, the “gray” market in China has remained the only way to purchase video games for many years.

If local retailers start to “tighten the screws”, local gamers will be left without console games.

How much money is there in the “gray” market?Ilya Gutov, Director of Business Development of MY.GAMES in China, in the comments App2Top.ru He noted that the sales of each console blockbuster on the gray market can amount to millions of dollars.

For this reason, he considers the situation to be a big loss for console publishers. Otherwise, they will not be able to enter the Chinese market today or it will be very difficult for them to enter.

Is this really news?Analyst Daniel Ahmad notes that the list is far from new.

According to him, the store just added a few new titles to it, which — surprise — were already removed from the shelves earlier.

They say that the retailer exclusively demonstrated to the community and the authorities how to follow the law.

“This one is very selective. It does not include all unlicensed games presented on the site. In it, you can find only those titles to which regulators have previously made specific claims related to political, violent, adult and other undesirable content,” adds Ahmad.