To put this news into perspective, the State Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film, and Television (SAPPRFT) are scrutinizing mobile games in China. On Thursday last week, the government organ issued new rules that will take effect July 1st, requiring that all mobile games be submitted to SAPPRFT for pre-approval at least 20 business days before being put online and presented to the public.
This is true, by the way, regardless of what kind of game you’ve made. The rules are even stricter if you’ve made a story-based game, especially one that touches on political or military topics. But even completely innocuous, story-less games like endless runners will have to submit their game, approval application, and the relevant licenses and permits to provincial authorities 20 days in advance.
TechinAsia commented: “From there, the game goes through the sort of ridiculous, inefficient-sounding process that only a government body could come up with. First, provincial authorities take five work days to assess the completeness and accuracy of the application. Then they send that, along with their written recommendation, to the national SAPPRFT office, which takes ten business days to make the final yes/no decision. That decision is then sent back to provincial authorities, who then have an addition three business days to inform the game developer of the decision.”
Assuming the reply was yes, the developer can then launch their game, but that’s not the end of it. Within seven days of launching the game, the developer must get in touch with provincial authorities again to report when the game was launched, where it can be downloaded, and a host of other details. If you don’t launch within 20 business days of the date you originally registered to launch your game on, you also have to get in touch with authorities to let them know why.
Previously this year, SAPPRFT tightened the rules for TV shows, Apple’s iBooks and iTunes Movies, and banned foreign companies from publishing creative works online.
First seen and source; Tech in Asia, TheMerkle
