Gaming firms in China safe after removal of proposed restriction

Last year, the Chinese gaming regulator proposed various restrictions on gaming companies. These were quite harsh and were added without any form of warning.

However, the National Press and Publication Administration's (NPPA) website have no longer mention of these proposed rules. Instead, people are now greeted with an 404 error.

This comes as a big relief for Chines gaming giants like Tencent and Garena. Tencent is currently the largest gaming company that owns multiple game studios. Riot Games, the creators of Valorant, are also part of Tencent.

Garena, while much smaller in scale, is still a popular gaming company. It is best known for Free Fire and Free Fire Max, two popular online mobile esports title. Both games are big titles in the esports industry.

The previous announcement led to a massive drop in share prices of both companies. Many believe it was one of the reason for the reversal of the earlier rules.

What did the rules restrict?

China is known to restrict underage kids from engaging in online gaming for long durations. So much so that they had proposed a weekly hour restriction on playing online games. Adults do not have this many restrictions.

The proposed rules went one step beyond to impose multiple restrictions on gaming companies. This was reportedly done for the same reason. As per the rules, companies were to set spending limits.

Furthermore, they were also required to ban daily login rewards along with a ban on live-streaming of heavy tipping within games. The new were not very welcomed by both the gamers and gaming companies.

This is due to the fact that under 18 players already had restriction. What these rules did was restrict adults playing online games, who are the main source of revenue for companies.

The removal of the rules does not necessarily mean they are completely gone. However, for the time being, Chinese gaming companies are safe.