Sony has temporarily stopped selling games in China. The company took to social network Weibo to announce indefinite suspension of PlayStation Store China. The reason for the temporary closure is a “system security upgrade.”

The Chinese authorities are tightening political censorship in video games.

Video game industry in China is famously conducive to all sorts of political controversy. Most recently, Chinese developer Seasun Games has cut off 1.5 million players in Taiwan from JX3, a MMORPG similar to World Of Warcraft.

Disco Elysium came out last year to universal acclaim. Its storytelling and customization system won four awards at The Game Awards 2019 and led many reviewers to choose the title as the game of the year, with Time listing Disco Elysium as one of the top games of the entire decade.

Launching a game in China can be tricky in more ways than you’d expect. Capcom hasn’t even fully released its Resident Evil 3 remake, but the demo has already angered patriotic Chinese gamers.

All premium games or games offering IAPs will now only be allowed onto the Chinese App Store if they have a license number obtained from the General Administration of Press and Publication of China.

In China, the publicity department of Haidian District Committee has partnered with the Communist Party’s official newspaper People’s Daily and casual games developer Ohayoo, which is owned by ByteDance.

Chinese authorities continue to tighten regulations for games. Use of English, virtual marriages and the whole genre of “imperial harem games” fell under the ban.

As China and the US ease the trade war, a number of proposed trade tariffs are getting shelved. One of them is 25% import tax on consoles, which are mainly manufactured in China.

ByteDance, which owns TikTok, has purchased AI developer LevelupAI. The developer is based in Beijing. No information is available on the price.

In 2019, only 1,570 video games were licensed by the Chinese authorities, according to Niko Partners. That’s way less than 8,500 at the peak in 2017.

The conflict between Hong Kong and China is affecting the gaming world once more. Players are taking advantage of new items added in GTA V’s Diamond Casino Heist update to look like Hong Kong protesters.

A Beijing-based mobile gaming company was fined $99,000 for publishing a game without government approval. This is the first penalty of this kind after the licensing freeze was lifted.

Tencent is launching the Chinese version of the Nintendo Switch on December 10. The Chinese Switch will be priced at 2,099 yuan (around $300) and will come with a copy of New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe, the only game for Switch so far to have received official license.

China has extended its campaign against excessive gaming to mobile and introduced an age rating system. Yesterday, the State Administration of Press and Publications (SAPP) published new rules regulating time and money that users can spend on games.

Finland’s gaming organization Neogames explores the state of video games markets of China, Japan and South Korea in their latest study.

The National Health Service is opening the first specialized clinic in the UK to treat children and young adults diagnosed with gaming disorder.

Blizzard sued China’s Sina Games over plagiarism. Its mobile strategy Glorious Saga heavily borrows element of the Warcraft series, Blizzard’s lawyers say.