Game approvals exclude Tencentby Gary Poon
China's publishing regulator approved the release of the third batch of video games after a freeze for most of last year, with Tencent (0700) still absent from the list of new titles.
The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television
approved 93 games in its third list since December, with Tencent's domestic rival NetEase also absent for the third time.
Authorities stopped approving the release of new titles from March last year amid regulatory overhaul triggered by growing concern about violent content and game addiction, particularly among young players.
Tencent's shares subsequently tumbled, wiping billions of dollars from the stock's market value. The shares are still down as much as 20 percent compared with before the freeze.
Tencent dropped 1.24 percent to HK$335.8 yesterday.Though the approval process is thawing, analysts said new releases would still be gradual as the regulator had a
backlog of thousands of games.Including Tuesday's batch, the regulator has
approved 257 games since December when it resumed processing applications after an almost year-long hiatus. Before the freeze, in January alone last year, the regulator approved 716 titles.
With two weeks separating the latest batch from the previous batch on January 9, "Tencent and NetEase will likely have to wait until after the Lunar New Year holiday" running February 4 to 10, said a NetEase executive.
Source: The Standard
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-n ... 0123&sid=2
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