China Updates Licensing restrictions
After China’s new licensing restrictions, Apple has removed more than 4500 mobile games from its Apple Chinese App Store in just recent three days.
From now onwards, all the app developers need to have an official license from Chinese regulators to put their games on the App Store. Till before this new licensing rule came in, developers could put their games in the app store, while waiting for their license to be approved. Now the new license states that the app developers need to secure a license before submitting their apps.
Announced earlier this year, this new rule came into force on June 30 resulting in Apple purging the App Store off all the developers’ games and apps that haven’t gotten official license yet. Apple’s initial response was to freeze updates to all or any these apps. Now, of these frozen games are being far away from the App Store.
Apple Following Regulations
According to reports, quite 3,000 games were far away from the China App Store within the first two days in July and Apple warned developers about this. The corporate had to require action once the rule came into force. This is often being called one among the most important game purges on Apple’s App Store ever.
China at an average only approves about 1,500 game licenses every year and the process itself takes about six months to a year to be completed. Thus many of these games that have been pulled off the App Store will have to wait for a long time before they can come back on. This may be affecting their earnings for a very long time.
Total Damage in last few Days
Apple from its Chinese App Store removed 1,571 apps on July 1, 1,805 on July 2, and 1276 on July 3. However, developers can avoid this purge by not updating their app. It is estimated that more than 20,000 apps could be affected in total as the purge is going to carry on for a long time.