Why Apple Stopped Updating Over 15,000 Games in China's App Store (cnbc.com) 72
Apple "has faced mounting pressure from the Chinese government in recent weeks to comply with local regulations, including that all games show proof of a government granted license," writes Engadget.
And now it's finally come to a head, CNBC reports: Apple has blocked updates on tens of thousands of revenue-generating iPhone games on its App Store in China amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, according to a report from The Financial Times...
There are currently around 60,000 mobile games hosted on the China App Store that are paid for or have in-app purchases, according to AppinChina figures cited by the FT. However, China's regulators have only issued slightly more than 43,000 licenses since 2010, while just 1,570 were given out in 2019... Developers were told in February that they'd finally have to comply with China's mobile video game laws by June 30...
"Android app stores have largely observed the license rule since 2016," notes Engadget. "Apple, however, took a looser approach, allowing developers to publish their games while they waited for authorization, which could take months." (CNBC points out that "Grand Theft Auto" maker Rockstar Games "relied on the loophole for years.")
They also report that Apple's App Store earns more money in China than any other country -- including about 20% of all of Apple's in-app advertising revenue. A columnist at The Street estimates that Apple earned about $2.2 billion last year from App Store revenue in China. "If I am right in my calculations, gaming app revenues from China add up to roughly one-sixth of the total company's number" for App Store revenues
And now it's finally come to a head, CNBC reports: Apple has blocked updates on tens of thousands of revenue-generating iPhone games on its App Store in China amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, according to a report from The Financial Times...
There are currently around 60,000 mobile games hosted on the China App Store that are paid for or have in-app purchases, according to AppinChina figures cited by the FT. However, China's regulators have only issued slightly more than 43,000 licenses since 2010, while just 1,570 were given out in 2019... Developers were told in February that they'd finally have to comply with China's mobile video game laws by June 30...
"Android app stores have largely observed the license rule since 2016," notes Engadget. "Apple, however, took a looser approach, allowing developers to publish their games while they waited for authorization, which could take months." (CNBC points out that "Grand Theft Auto" maker Rockstar Games "relied on the loophole for years.")
They also report that Apple's App Store earns more money in China than any other country -- including about 20% of all of Apple's in-app advertising revenue. A columnist at The Street estimates that Apple earned about $2.2 billion last year from App Store revenue in China. "If I am right in my calculations, gaming app revenues from China add up to roughly one-sixth of the total company's number" for App Store revenues
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Re:Apple just doing what they are being told to do (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, all iToys are still being made in China, so Beijing can certainly make things miserable for them by just cutting off their supply.
Time for Apple to shutter all their Chinese operations, and move them elsewhere - be it Vietnam, India, or even the US
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Apple can't move manufacturing out of China because China has the fabs they need and the supply chains they need.
In fact they just chained themselves to China by switching away from x86 CPUs which are fabbed in the West to ARM which all come out of Taiwanese facilities.
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Umm, Taiwan != China
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Indeed but Taiwan is not exactly completely independent either. China can turn those screws if it needs to.
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Indeed but Taiwan is not exactly completely independent either. China can turn those screws if it needs to.
To be honest Taiwan's problem is that the had delusions of grandeur, in 1971 when they lost their seat on the UN Security Council they themselves strongly refused any division of China and the creation of an independent Taiwan. Instead they forced it into a vote of who was the "legitimate" owner of China's seat and long story short they lost. If they wanted independence back then, they probably would have gotten it. Their problem now is that China has flipped the script on them, because they were pouting ov
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They don't realistically have much political or public support in Taiwan though. China is pressuring every other nation to recognize China's claim to Taiwan if they want to have relations with China, but that only makes it a hostile territory they could occupy at great cost - and probably not without an actual shooting war with an army supplied by the US military. My guess is they're eyeing the situation in Hong Kong waiting for the right moment to say status quo is no longer an option, it's either independence or submission and we choose independence. They must see that there's no future in trying to appease China.
This potentially gives a whole new meaning to the term "Trade War"...
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Indeed but Taiwan is not exactly completely independent either. China can turn those screws if it needs to.
To be honest Taiwan's problem is that the had delusions of grandeur, in 1971 when they lost their seat on the UN Security Council they themselves strongly refused any division of China and the creation of an independent Taiwan. Instead they forced it into a vote of who was the "legitimate" owner of China's seat and long story short they lost. If they wanted independence back then, they probably would have gotten it.
Even more sad was that "Taiwan" in 1971 meant the non-Taiwanese mainlanders who didn't care about Taiwan or the Taiwanese people. Taiwan in 1971 was under martial law, and the Taiwanese people had no voice. The Nationalists before the end of martial law screwed over the Taiwanese people in many ways, but the handling of the independence issue will continue to haunt Taiwan for ages. Of course, all of this is theoretical. As seen by China's selective claiming of territorial rights in the South China Sea,
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It's true that today's China has territorial claims on everybody. It attacked India last month. A few weeks ago, it claimed a wildlife sanctuary in Bhutan. It has its South China Sea claims, and recently, one of their diplomats in Nursultan (no less!) claimed the entire Kazakhstan as Chinese territory. Most brazen - when Russia celebrated the 160th anniversary of Vladivostok a few weeks ago, Beijing soured the mood by claiming that that port was theirs.
However, Taiwan now has a government that has no
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Except that the last couple of elections in Taiwan saw the KMT defeated by a party that does not claim to be the Republic of China, but is instead claiming that Taiwan is a separate, independent country. That almost provoked an invasion from Beijing, w/ the result that ironically on this issue, the KMT is on the same page as Beijing
Now, w/ all the world really pissed @ Beijing for the Wuhan virus, Taiwan should launch a diplomatic offensive, starting w/ an attempt to establish formal diplomatic ties w/ c
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It's one thing for Western companies to totally ignore the fact that China is a communist theocracy and happily move their operations there only to cut costs. It's another thing for Taiwanese companies to do that, given that it makes their country even more dependent on Beijng!
Taiwan needs to do what India is doing, and get its companies to move all their operations out of Mainland China. If Taiwan itself is too expensive, try other options - Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, et al
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The "regulations" are probably intentionally designed to slow the inflow of western products. It's using bureaucracy as a cover for protectionism, not necessarily slow bureaucrats in the DMV sense.
Nationalism (Score:3, Insightful)
Nationalism is ruining the world.
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If there's a worse pandemic virus next year, what would be the result? The same thing. We're screwed.
No we won't; because there is very little chance we will have the same President after January 19th, 2021.
Not that I'm a big Biden supporter, mind you; but I have two pet dogs at home, and at least one of them would make a better president than the current one...
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Nationalisms always been a cancer. It was recognized as such in the start of last century, but it still went on and started wars that lead to hundreds of millions of dead.
And in 2020 people are trying that shit on again all over the world. Its the most moronic creed humanity has concocted, but we still keep trying it.
Re:Nationalism (Score:4, Informative)
Nationalism isn't the problem. Oppressive government regulations and tyrannical regimes are.
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No when it "brings people together" that's a false and temporary effect. The urge for nationalism comes from the tribalism instinct and the need to find scapegoats/pariahs for problems, when you feed that it will devolve to pure racism. If nationalism does unite different tribes and races (a scenario I doubt has ever really happened btw, but I digress), it will soon turn within itself to find undesirables after the realization that problems still exist.
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No when it "brings people together" that's a false and temporary effect.
You're a liar. Creating divisions is the false and temporary effect. "Bringing people together" is the natural state of things.
Also, you're dumb as a brick and ignorant as an ingot.
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Nationalism isn't the problem. Oppressive government regulations and tyrannical regimes are.
100%! Agree
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Apple is the problem. Google chose not to do business in China, Apple decided it would and this is the result.
Also nationalism is the problem too.
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Apple is the problem. Google chose not to do business in China, Apple decided it would and this is the result.
Also nationalism is the problem too.
Google isn't a hardware company. There's a very big difference there, practically-speaking.
And Apple has been trying to get out of dependence on Chinese manufacturing. For example, Airpods are manufactured in Vietnam, and I believe there is also some manufacturing in India, too.
Stuff like this may accelerate that timeline, however!
Re: Nationalism (Score:1)
> And in 2020 people are trying that shit on again all over the world. Its the most moronic creed humanity has concocted, but we still keep trying it.
Marxism?
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Nationalism is ruining the world.
Just like it did for millennia?
Re: Nationalism (Score:1)
Re: Nationalism (Score:1)
Lol, uh wut?
no support (Score:5, Interesting)
Paid Apple developers see a box where they need to put in a Chinese registration number to continue selling their app.
The only documentation it links to is a 6 year old regulation on China government website, in Chinese. I understand Chinese and even still this document is not actionable -- it tells you what registration you need to get, but not how to get it.
I have contacted Apple support, since I pay as a developer and expect support, and follow up once per day -- I have yet to see a human response.
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So what happens if you put a random number in the box?
If you're not in China, do it.
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Fuzz FTW!
Find out how Android devs do it (Score:2)
I have contacted Apple support, since I pay as a developer and expect support
Although that's a nice idea and all, the developer fee is not really so much you can expect white glove treatment (Still just $100/year, unless you are on an enterprise plan?).
Have you tried a post on the new dev forums?
It seems to me the more realistic plan is to figure out what Android devs are doing, since they are already managing this - or to "partner" with what appears to be some kind of shakedown company like AppInChina [appinchina.co] that
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I'd be interested in a per capita chart by country (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean there are like 1.4 billion people in china, so the per capita there is something like 63 cents each.
If the other 4/5 of their app income is from "other places" maybe they should just give up the whole China thing...
Seems like more trouble than it's worth.
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The Chinese market is growing far faster than most others. India and Brazil are coming up quickly too. Everyone wants a slice of that action but of course they have to deal with local rules, just like they have to deal with GDPR in Europe.
It's not new or surprising or a China-specific problem.
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Losing 20% of revenue can easily change a product from profitable to not profitable. Not everybody earns the 40% margins that Apple does! So that may mean the difference between doing the app or not at all. Perhaps a bit over simplified, but it is likely often true.
Aren't 90% of mobile apps developed by the Chinese (Score:1)
Trade wars are awesome! (Score:1, Troll)
Because Putin loves when trump destroys the foundation of world order and the western world.
Winning!
Could we address (Score:2, Offtopic)
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I have an iPad 3 which works as well as the day I got it. Except for the fact, I can't install ANY software since it is no longer supported by Apple. At the very least Apple should allow third party installs on hardware once it abandons a product.
Well, if you buy an Apple product you should know this will happen.
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I have an iPad 3 which works as well as the day I got it. Except for the fact, I can't install ANY software since it is no longer supported by Apple. At the very least Apple should allow third party installs on hardware once it abandons a product.
Well, if you buy an Apple product you should know this will happen.
Right.
Because no one else ever stops updating products...
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(shrug)
It's an Apple. They do that to everything.
Be more discerning in your purchasing if you want something else.
P.S. I still have an active Samsung S4 Mini (but I put LineageOS on it), S5 Mini (given to daughter), and even Galaxy Ace, not to mention a cheap GBP20 Android tablet. They don't get updated any more, but they all still work as they did before. Hell, I'm shocked at how many apps are still supported on a device that old, to be honest.
I used one as an infrared remote control (with IRPlus and th
Re: Could we address (Score:1)
I have an iPad 2. It has full access to the Apple store, installs and updates everything.
I think your iPad is just broken. Try reinstalling iOS.
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I have an iPad 2. It has full access to the Apple store, installs and updates everything.
I think your iPad is just broken. Try reinstalling iOS.
I have an iPad 2, and have the same experience.
Maybe the OP was just lying about it. The tenor of the rest of his post screams "Victim".
Re: Could we address (Score:1)
Maybe but could just need a reset, too. Shit happens. Mine is so old I had to check to see what model it is, the finger touch unlock function is broken (I get this cool error message telling me so even though it works for everything else), and kinda slow but it does work and is supported afaict.
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I have an iPad 3 which works as well as the day I got it. Except for the fact, I can't install ANY software since it is no longer supported by Apple. At the very least Apple should allow third party installs on hardware once it abandons a product.
Liar.
I installed some new software on my iPad 2 about a month or so ago. Kinda surprised me, actually.
Chinese fragility in full force. (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine being so threatened by the idea of someone stating an opinion you disagree with you throw a massive tantrum and lock down entire industries at a time to make sure everyone agrees with you.
Xi again proves to the world he's a fragile chinese crybaby.
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I think you might need to read a little Chinese history rather than just calling them names. China has had a complicated relationship with the west over the last few centuries, and this is just the latest chapter.
Re:Chinese fragility in full force. (Score:4, Informative)
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Chinese has a complicated relationship with the necks of everyone who stepped out of line and nothing has changed in thousands of years.
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You mean kind of like the cancel culture in the USA?
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So-called "cancel culture" is about making a choice — choosing not to patronize some business because you don't agree with its actions. Chinese censorship is about not permitting you to have a choice.
So no, absolutely nothing like that.
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Cancel culture is actually about harassing someone and their families and anyone they as much as passed in the street until misguided revenge for shit that happened ten years ago takes place.
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Even the article suggests this isn't a "freedom of speech" issue. This issue is about the rising tensions between the US and China. China has already stated, if you continue to threaten China's industry, then it would retaliate again US companies. Apple is a pretty easy target here.
But hey US does this all the time. Look at embargoes on Venezuela and Iran. Both countries are simply exercising their rights to sovereignty, and the right to act without foreign interference, but US doesn't care.
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Imagine being such a fragile crybaby that a nation you have ripped off, plagiarized from, breached IP rights of, all openly and blatantly with impunity, dares to say "Alright knock that shit off" is seen as an attack.
Fragile chinese crybabies.
Re: Chinese fragility in full force. (Score:1)
Iran and Venezuela aren't modern sovereign states. One is an extremist Islamic nuthouse. The other should be one of the richest countries in the world but is among the poorest because they decided foolishly that a socialist dictator was a good idea.
We are not morally required to deal with scumbags. Nor are we required to deal with those who support scumbags. Everyone has a choice: trade with us or trade with scumbags. What's the problem?
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Actually the rule about games is mostly nothing to do with censorship, it's about addiction. They noticed that developers have found a way to get people, often children, addicted to their games. For example they make them free to play but force the player to wait if they don't pay.
Apple actually responded to that themselves with some limits on what abuses games were allowed to perpetrate, but they didn't go far enough for the Chinese... Or many Western governments in fact, who are now looking at banning loo
Re: Chinese fragility in full force. (Score:1)
No. These rules about getting a magic number to be online predate the existence of mobile games. It's just a bureaucratic control mechanism. Nothing more. I was dealing with this when China barely had something you could reasonably call internet.
Chinese apps banned in India (Score:2)
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Apple's ticking time bomb in China... (Score:3, Informative)
To be completely frank, this is a tragic situation for Chinese consumers, as well as developers all over the world.
In 2016, China passed a law that said that all games in the country - console, mobile, arcade, etc - needed to get a game license from the government. In reality, so far they've only been concerned with paid games and games that offered in-app purchases. Free games and ad-supported games...well, they've basically been looking the other way.
Immediately, the 100+ Android app stores (remember, Google Play is banned in China) took action and required this of all of their submissions. Apple, desperate to maintain market share and relevance in China (where it has steadily been losing out to Huawei and Android in general, but still gets a whopping 18% of its revenue due to the sheer size of the market), somehow managed to get the government to look the other way for the last 4 years: In its game submission process, it ASKED for the game license number, but it never validated it [theinformation.com]. It was an open secret for years that you could enter any random number and continue the process. Who knows why the Chinese government was willing to look the other way for Apple for so long.
Until now. Perhaps something about the current international climate caused China to say, "yeah, we're not gonna let this slide anymore." Those are the rumors. Anyway, now Apple has left its developers and customers out in the cold. Starting July 1, the minute you try to update your game, it disappears from the Apple App Store China if you don't have a valid game license. More than 7000 games [appinchina.co] have been removed so far. They've refused to make any major announcement about this or answer clarifying questions about how this is going to work in practice. Developers have been left to figure this out for themselves.
And how long before the users who invested money in these games realize their game has now disappeared and get angry? It will take a while, because the effect is staggered (only when the developer updates their game). Surely this is by design.
Apple played a dangerous game. You may applaud them for failing to force its app store publishers to capitulate to China's hilarious content restrictions [appinchina.co] and censorship, but at the end of the day this was a losing game from day one.
Now thousands of developers are left out in the cold, suddenly without their precious China revenue. China only approves about 1500 game licenses a year, so few of these games will be back anytime soon. And as soon as these un-updateable games start breaking, or users uninstall them or upgrade their devices, iOS users will get wise to what has happened. I wonder what effect this will have on Apple's already precarious market share in the world's largest mobile market?
(Full disclosure: I work for a company that helps foreign games get published in China. So I've been following this pretty closely.)