EARLY JULY SAW OVER 2500 MOBILE GAMES REMOVED FROM APPLE’S CHINA APP STORE AS CRACKDOWN BEGINS
A report has it that over 2500 mobile games from China’s App Store have been removed during the first week of July, this is based on new reports emerging from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Should we expect the opposite when the U.S tech giant have been ordered by authorities of the two major markets, while at the moment, the latest crackdown is currently focused on unlicensed games and understood to be the first phase of demonstration. So sorry this is coming now due to ongoing fixes.
The impact of this crackdown will be felt greatly on the Chinese app economy, while the removals of these apps have to do with Apple’s compliance with Chinese gaming regulations. Apple had allowed a mobile gaming industry to thrive on its device (iPhone) platform in China for years which isn’t the case with major Android app stores based on enforced 2016 rule that Apple failed to implement.
Reflecting on the current impact of the crackdown, according to statistics which is based on comparison, the July figure is reported to have four times the number of games that were delisted as at first week of April, also five times higher than the first week of May and more than four times higher than the first week of June.
It’s also important to note that Apple’s deadline of June set earlier this is no other, but a potential source that have seen over 2500 mobile games removed from the tech giants app store. Although, the deadline was put in place for app developers compliance with a Chinese law for mobile games that was first introduced in 2016. A regulation or law that requires game developers offering in-app purchase or paid downloads to obtain a license from the General Administration of Press and Publication of China, also understood to be one of the country’s censorship body.
iPhone game developers actually had a way of going about the rules while publishing their games, and in the process wait for their license approval. This could prove difficult and stretched for many months or even ugly considering 2018 outcome. At that time, the issuance of license witnessed a halt as a result of Chinese regulators reshuffling their duties to clamp down further on games viewed inappropriate by Beijing, such a games containing gambling, pornography, violence and other content deemed inacceptable by the Chinese authority.
It’s understood the decision of Apple to remove thousands of games from the App Store which actually took effect in July was expected. Though, data obtained by Sensor Tower could only capture those games that actually witnessed enough downloads to rank in the App Store’s charts which also does not exclude game subcategory charts.
Despite woes currently faced by the Chinese app ecosystem, it was figured out that out of more than 2,500 games that were removed, about 2,000 had less than 10,000 downloads since 2012 according to the firm’s estimates, and as such, the titles had seen a total of 133.4 million lifetime downloads.
Looking at the revenue generated by these apps, in all, the removed games pulled a total of $34.7 million gross revenue, with a game generating more than $10 million while six earned over $1 million.
Notable games that were taken down includes Contract Killer Zombies 2 from Glu, ASMR Slicing from Crazy Labs, Solitaire from Zynga and not excluding Nonstop Chuck Norris from Flaregames coupled with Hay Day from Supercell. Based on these changes in the gaming market in addition to the coronavirus impact, sees the U.S reclaim its top spot as regards the iOS consumers spend in second quarter.
What is your take as over 2500 mobile games has been removed by Apple?
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