Investors need to be brushed in the right direction. The bill, in its initial form, was to ban a long list of fundamental mechanics of modern mobile games: daily login bonuses to encourage continued presence, first purchase bonuses, virtual currency rewards keeping the user in its ecosystem as well. as long as possible… but above all, ban on minors using lottery systems more commonly called gacha. Games of chance are often singled out for their addictive aspect, and their functioning identical to a gambling game.
The Feng of Beans
Curbing the economic potential of mobile games, which are ultra-popular in China, these measures frightened investors, who began to sell their shares in bales. Reuters reports that the Chinese Communist Party is publicly softening its stance. Regulators will “sincerely study” public reactions to smooth the edges, although the government has not yet specified what measures would be scaled back. According to Reuters’ corroborating sources, the chief regulator Feng Shixin was discreetly dismissed from his position following the debacle. This is the cost of hurting capital. Let us point out that the publishers were publicly cooperative with these new measures.
Following these announcements, Tencent and NetEase recovered on the stock market, recovering approximately half of their value lost over the last few days. According to Saxo Capital Markets, a Hong Kong financial analysis company interviewed by Bloomberg, the disappearance of Feng Shixin is only the beginning of winning back investors. “If the news is true, it signals that the incident is not indicative of real government policy… but investors remain skeptical. This is a positive signal, but insufficient to move the needle.“Observers are impatiently awaiting January 24, the closing date of public consultations on this new anti-addiction law.
NetEase could definitely get its head above water thanks to a new partnership with Blizzard. According to Reuters, the two giants have resumed talks to reissue the American catalog in China. The rag burned at the end of 2022 despite the fourteen-year-old partnership between the two companies for a dark story of profit distribution, management of user data and intellectual property.