About 30 thousand applications disappeared from the Chinese segment of the App Store on the night of August 1-2. About it reported research company Qimai. It turned out that games make up 90% of all remote programs.
Such sudden actions are associated with the implementation by Apple of the Chinese law, which was passed back in 2016. According to this law, developers of paid games or programs that have in-house purchases are required to obtain a license in the country.
In the past, game developers have tried to circumvent this law. First, they published games with a random license number, and then they just started going through the long process of obtaining real permission. Apple has noticed this loophole and has begun addressing the issue along with the offending games.
At the same time, the developers themselves complain that they cannot immediately apply for a license. Most of the companies published in the Chinese App Store are foreign agents, so they must cooperate with local companies to legally release games in the vast Middle Kingdom. But only the approval process can take months.
The first large-scale purges began early last month. Then, in the first two days of July, a little more than three thousand applications were removed from the Chinese App Store.
Until this point, developers from China ignored Apple’s requests to comply with the law, despite the fact that the Cupertinos warned about the store rules, which came into force on June 30, back in February.
Header image: Nikkei Montage / Reuters
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