China ends freeze on video-game licensing, approves 80 new titles

Tencent and peers from South Korea to Japan have rallied after the official China Securities Journal reported that regulators had reviewed and passed an initial batch of online games

China has approved 80 new video game titles in the first batch of licenses granted by the media regulator after the end of a nine-month freeze.

The initial games were mostly local, mobile titles and didn’t include any from industry giants Tencent Holdings Ltd. or Netease Inc. The notice of approvals was posted online by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

China’s gaming industry, which generates more than $30 billion of revenue, has been hammered this year after regulators froze the approval process for new games, preventing companies from making money off hit titles. That threw Tencent into