Chinese App Store Deleted 40,000 Games at the Last Day of 2020

On December 31 (local time), it was reported that Apple had deleted nearly 39,000 games from the Chinese App Store. Until now, there have been reports that a large number of games are excluded at the request of the Chinese authorities, but it is the largest in terms of number of deletions per day.

According to reports, on the 31st, Apple removed more than 46,000 apps, including games. Qimai is said to have included famous titles such as Assassin’s Creed and 2K NBA 2K20 among the deleted games. In addition, only 74 of the paid games on the App Store survived.

In February of last year, Apple notified developers of the Chinese government permit until the end of June and extended the deadline until December 31st. It hasn’t been neglected so far, and in July it froze updates to thousands of unlicensed accounts, and deleted more than 30,000 apps in August. It seems that this mass deletion also targets games that have not acquired a license by the deadline.

Originally, in China, it was mandatory to acquire licenses for all paid games or games with in-app billing since 2016, but at first it has been tolerated within the App Store. It can be seen that the tightening of regulations is accelerating, such as the strengthening of the conclusion and the deletion of 25,000 in 2019 and 94,000 in 2020.

Apple admits that it is true to delete the app at the request of the Chinese authorities. In compliance with local laws, Apple has installed a server for storing user information in each local country at the request of the Chinese and Russian governments. The App Store is no exception, but it can be a daunting choice for Apple as the more popular game apps are removed, the less attractive the platform is. Related information can be found here .