China will require ISBN registration for all games starting August 1, 2020.
China will require ISBN registration for all games starting August 1, 2020.
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15,000 games removed from Apple’s App Store in China ahead of registration deadline

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Unlicensed mobile games are dropping like flies from the Apple App Store as China’s deadline for registration approaches on Friday.

At the request of the Chinese government, Apple has removed nearly 15,000 games since July 1, with more likely to disappear when the August 1 requirement for registration arrives, said Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad over email. “We expect thousands of games to be removed from the China App Store this year,” he said. For years, China has been the No. 1 mobile game market in the world, and it generated the highest revenue of any country on Apple’s App Store, with 2019 revenues of $12.6 billion, according to measurement firm Sensor Tower.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.