For several months, the App Store has been removing a large number of applications and games available in China, at the request of the government of the country. According to the latest article published by Wall Street Journal about it, the purge of apps and games it is not only affecting the applications of Chinese developers, but also other foreign companies, such as Tripadvisor.
Throughout this month of December, Apple has sent different communications to Chinese developers, warning them that a new wave of applications and games are at risk of disappearing from the App Store, continuing with the country's government supervision process that began last summer.
As can be read in the statement that Apple has sent to the developers, those who offer some type of applications with in-app purchases, including games, have until December 31 to present the license offered by the Chinese government and that allows them to continue to be available in the Chinese App Store.
For several years now, the Chinese government has required all video games to be licensed, which is actually a license. approval by the state. Although this law was passed several years ago, it was not until the middle of this year that the government got down to work to enforce it.
But, in addition, the government of the country has also requested Apple to remove more than 100 apps that until now were available in China, like Tripadvisor, without any justification. This medium states that:
The app store purge comes as China has stepped up its efforts to police its internet, tightening content controls and censorship, including a demand that Tripadvisor and more than 100 other apps be removed from the app store. Apple at home. The China Cyberspace Administration called the apps illegal without explaining the offenses that Tripadvisor or the other apps, most of which are from Chinese developers, had committed. Tripadvisor declined to comment.
According to the latest data from Sensor Tower, before the purge began, the Chinese App Store had 272.000 games available, of which more than 94.000 have disappeared in just 6 months, a really impressive figure if we compare it with the number of games it removed from the Chinese App Store in 2019: 25.000.
