China just released 69 more publishing licenses earlier this August. And a few game producers shared the story of how their games got approved.
谍：惊蛰 (translated as Spy: Jingzhe) was a game about covert ops and spies in Shanghai in the 1940s during WWII. The game’s development was finished almost three years ago, and since then, are in the license review process. To get the approval from NPPA, the game, the team had to remove all text related to “Kill” or “death,” and all content related to alcohol and cigarettes must also be modified. It’s not difficult to imagine the amount of work they had to do on a story about spies during wartime. The developers even had trouble maintaining their financial security during the three years, and hopefully, finally being able to publish the game can turn the table around.
A screenshot of the behind-scene story shared by the producer of Spy: Jingzhe
A producer from Irisloft says they are so excited that they are going to eat dumplings for celebrations. They also wait for about a year before getting the license.
However, not all people are happy about the result. The producer of Devil Slayer - Raksasi, is still waiting, as they wrote, “Congratulations to all the games that get the license. Ours is not on the list…… Bye.”
Source: Zhihu