China has always worked differently with video games than us in the west, and now Bloomberg reports that the country has blocked, at least temporarily, the approval of new licenses for the distribution of video games. This decision of course impacts the Chinese market greatly, and among the first to suffer from this decision is the giant Tencent, whose profits have recently fallen for the first time in years.
This critical moment in the industry all revolves around the country's authorities wishing to have major control over the contents of these products, which they say are in some cases violent and have an affinity to gambling, which could have negative effects on the younger population. The effects of this decision have already had important implications on the stock market performances of some of the most important publishers, including Nexon, Capcom, and Konami, all of which suffered a decisive decline (5.9%, 2.7%, and 4.2% respectively).
Of course it will be interesting to see how this develops, but considering this follows a restructuring of authorities in the country, it may not develop for a while, and as Bloomberg notes, approvals take between two to three months, so even if they're unfrozen right now it'll take a while for things to gather steam.
What do you make of all this?