China aims to streamline its mobile game censorship process

Mobile gaming is huge in China, and thousands of new games come out each year. That’s good news for the tech industry, but it also means a lot of work for China’s government, and long delays for developers because every game released has to be formally approved by China’s censorship board. And until recently, the group that was reviewing mobile games included just ten people. (It has since been upped to twenty).

Needless to say, having so few people trying to review every single mobile game thoroughly wasn’t a particularly effective or efficient system. Recognizing that, China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television (SAPPRFT) has announced new measures aimed at streamlining the censorship process to reduce employee workload and developer wait times.

According to Sina Games, starting in late December, games that aren’t likely to touch on sensitive racial, political, historical and social issues will be processed using a different, simpler system. That includes tower defense games, platforming games, chess games, music and dancing games, sports games, flying shooter games, and puzzle games, among other genres.

Even if your mobile game doesn’t fall into that category, though, China’s censors are still hoping you’ll be in for shorter wait times. When the new measures are implemented in late December, authorities are hoping they will be able to cut the time it takes to inspect and approve a mobile game from 15-30 days down to 5-15 days.

Perhaps needless to say, the rules about what’s actually legal in Chinese games haven’t changed, and any games found to be violating them will still be banned from release in China. As we learned earlier this year, China bans games that include any of the following:

• Gambling-related content or game features
• Anything that violates China’s constitution
• Anything that threatens China’s national unity, sovereignty, or territorial integrity.
• Anything that harms the nation’s reputation, security, or interests.
• Anything that instigates racial/ethnic hatred, or harms ethnic traditions and cultures.
• Anything that violates China’s policy on religion by promoting cults or superstitions.
• Anything that promotes or incites obscenity, drug use, violence, or gambling.
• Anything that harms public ethics or China’s culture and traditions.
• Anything that insults, slanders, or violates the rights of others.
• Other content that violates the law

See: China blocks thousands of non-sensitive sites in brash move to censor a few bad eggs