China approves publishing licenses for 67 more online game titles, its third batch in 2022, but Tencent and NetEase games again failed to make the list
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the third license batch of 2022, and the second straight one that leaves Tencent and NetEase empty-handed: in April, China's first post-freeze batch approved licenses without either giant, so today's list extends a pattern rather than starting one.
The precedent cuts both ways. In 2018, the first approvals after that year's nine-month suspension also skipped Tencent before regulators later relented — and by late 2023, both giants were back inside large approval rounds. Today's omission therefore reads as a deliberate squeeze on the two biggest publishers while the pipeline reopens around them.
First-order effects
- Tencent and NetEase remain unable to monetize new domestic releases, while dozens of smaller studios gain publishable titles in their place.
Second-order effects
- Both companies are pushed further toward international launches and existing-title revenue, shifting where their growth comes from until regulators fold them back in — as they eventually did in September 2022's paid-game approvals.
Third-order effects
- If each freeze-and-reopen cycle follows the 2018–2019 template — broad batches first, giants last — license approvals harden into a recurring policy lever that sets the pace of China's entire domestic games market.
The trend: China's regulator is using license batches as a throttle on the games industry, repeatedly reopening the pipeline while keeping its two largest publishers waiting at the gate.