Apple is purging 39,000 games from the App Store in China

On his Apple removed 39,000 games from its Chinese store as part of the crackdown games without a government license in the country.

Seconds Reuters, the news is not a big surprise. apple has removed approximately 30,000 applications from the Chinese App Store during the summer, and warned that more would be removed if saidno rebo official approval in late June. This deadline was extended to 31 December. Only 74 of the top 1,500 paid games remain after yesterday’s purge, i aamong the games affected are Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed Identity i NBA 2K20, according to nothingQimai research company.

Getting an approved game in China is a long and laborious task for many Western publishers. Essentially, they have to get a Chinese ISBN number from the government—A process that is almost impossible unless foreign developers teams up with a Chinese publisher before release, according to Engadget. Previously, the Financial Times reports that application developers they were allowed to sell their games on the App Store while waiting for an official license. Not anymore.

The important thing here is that while games were the vast majority of purged apps, they weren’t them not more uns. In total, 46,000 applications were allocated. This follows Apple’s long-standing trend of pressure from the Chinese government regarding the apps allowed in its App Store. Last year, Apple removed an app used by Hong Kong protesters keep track of the police after China said Apple was involved in “illegal acts.” Around the same time, too has removed the Quartz news app of your Chinese store due to the publication coverage of Hong Kong protests. In 2015, Apple even locked own news application of cargo in China.

Apple has always had to be careful about China. Not only is it the second largest market, however From Apple supply chain it is also it depends largely on Chinese factories. (That it eventually caused some delays in Apple’s 2020 product launches, mostly the iPhone 12, due to the pandemic.) The trade war between the United States and China also led the company to consider moving from anywhere.5-30% of its production capacity outside China.

That said, meIt’s unclear why Apple is suddenly demanding strict compliance with a Chinese licensing law that has been in place since 2016. Android app stores, such as Tencent and Huawei, have historically complied with the law. He Financial Times suggests that it could have something to do with rising tensions with the United States and China, which would lead the latter to increase control over Apple. Whatever the reason, does not appear to be Apples Bottom line. The FT reports that Apple will likely only lose about $ 340 million in sales, as most of the larger games are already licensed.