In China, the quotes of Tencent and NetEase flew down amid news of the suspension of game licensing. At the same time, it later turned out that there were no plans to introduce them. So far, we are talking exclusively about slowing down the process.
To begin with, a little background.
Yesterday, a meeting was held between the authorities of the Celestial Empire and representatives of the two largest gaming companies in the region — Tencent and NetEase. As reported by Reuters with reference to the Xinhua news agency, the purpose of the meeting was to:
- ensure that companies comply with strict measures to curb teenage addiction to games (for example, limiting gaming sessions to 3 hours per week);
- to tell companies that it is not necessary to focus only on money and traffic when doing business;
- recommend changing the design of mechanics that develop gaming addiction.
This morning, the South China Morning Post, citing several of its own sources, noted that the Chinese authorities announced plans to “freeze” the issuance of ISBN during the same meeting.
This seriously alarmed both the gaming community and the market. Tencent shares fell by 8% (from 520 to 480 yuan), and NetEase fell by 11% (from 150 to 133 yuan).
At the same time, some market experts, including Daniel Ahmad, noted that there was no talk of suspending the issuance of licenses at the meeting. The Xinhua news agency did not mention this.
A few hours later, the South China Morning Post updated the original publication. Now, according to her, we are talking about slowing down the licensing process, not freezing it.