China’s Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily reports that the two Chinese ministries responsible for monitoring and approving online games will revise their criteria in terms of approving what games get released in China.
In a quote within the People’s Daily, which printed the Guangzhou Daily report, Ministry of Culture Cultural and Internet Commerce department head Li Jianwei said that the new change in how online games in China are approved will streamline the approval process while making companies more aware and responsible for the content that they will submit for approval.
Mobile games and online music services will be the first group that will supposedly benefit from the new regulations (or lack of regulations). The Ministry of Culture will also expand companies’ ability to self regulate their own content, a la the ESRB in the United States.
The report also has interviews with Chinese game development companies and publishers. Publishers are quoted in saying that these new regulations will allow for faster approval and release of imported online games.
Basically, this means that China is in the process of opening up its online gaming market to self regulation. If it works out, this could mean more imported western online games for Chinese players and more western companies coming to China.
What this means for the west, well, I can only speculate that it will bring in more money for development, particularly since China is such as huge market for video games. This might also lead to more Chinese and Western collaborations which may one day end up in the west. So far this is a very good sign for the growth of China’s online gaming industry.
Source: 文化出版市场新法规施行 网游内容审查减少 [Guangzhou Daily reposted on People’s Daily]
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Eric is a Beijing based writer and all around FAT man. You can contact him @FatAsianTechie@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @FatAsianTechie.
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