'It's over, China's pro e-Sport game is back.'
18 months since China's gaming regulator imposed restrictions on overseas video games, several popular titles have now received licenses to enter the Beijing market.
It is understood that 45 foreign video games received publishing licenses including 7 from South Korea which will be imported through Tencent Holdings, the world's largest video game company.
Even NetEase, ByteDance, XD Inc and iDreamSky have also received overseas video game publishing authorization licenses from China's National Press and Publication Administration.
This indirectly means that popular titles such as Unite's Pokémon and Riot Games' Valorant will enter China again, which is the world's largest video game market.
Previously, the global video game industry has been under pressure from restrictions imposed by China in its efforts to control the large influence of local technology firms.
In 2021, China will only grant publishing licenses to 76 imported games compared to 456 games in 2017.
And the news of the licensing approval seemed to have a positive impact with game-themed stocks in South Korea such as Netmarble Corp, NCSOFT, Krafton, Kakao Games and Devsisters jumping between 2% to 17%.
Shares of Tencent, XD Inc and iDreamSky rose between 0.8% and 5.2% in Hong Kong while Nintendo shares in Japan added 0.2%.
