One of the giant Chinese companies (who are also having a minority stake in Ubisoft, and they might be the reason why Rainbow Six: Siege was somewhat censored worldwide) is struggling due to China freezing licensing games, which is necessary for them to be legally available in the Communist country.
Bloomberg reports that Tencent informed the marketing team to keep their spending in check to „endure the hard times together.” It means the unlicensed games’ spending budget will have to be sent back to Tencent so that it can reinvest it elsewhere.
The Chinese Communist Party has halted the game licensing in April, and its last viable route to get games going was shut in October. It’s important because it affects the international market and the gaming industry, too! Since the beginning of October, Tencent lost no less than 190 billion dollars of its market value, and this is also why the company is getting reorganised.
A few analysts believe that Xi Jinping’s government will restart game licensing in March, but until then, we have to see how Tencent (as well as NetEase, the company that Blizzard has teamed up with to create Diablo Immortal) will fare. The Chinese are in the international industry already, but the „slow times” will hurt them in the short term.
Source: GamesIndustry
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