In recent years, China’s relationship with mobile gaming has been an erratic one, to say the least. From months-long licence freezes to sudden bursts of new approvals, to revenue falls and title resurrections, China’s gaming industry seems anything but predictable.

So far this year, regulatory restrictions have been easing around mobile gaming – good news for some of the country’s biggest companies – as 88 online games had been approved for licences by the middle of January, and a further 87 games have been approved for release in February.

Now, many of China’s bigger games companies are playing a role in promoting Chinese cultural and social values.

Promoting a culture

At the Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association conference, senior executives at Tencent, NetEase, miHoYo, Lilith Games, 37Games and Perfect World all shared the sentiment that they will promote the country’s culture.

As reported by South China Morning Post, this resolution aims to have "a positive impact on society".

Cultural promotion can already be seen in certain games such as Tencent’s Honour of Kings, which tells "Chinese stories" in a contemporary style. In the wake of harsher restrictions, the company fell from grace last year, no longer China’s largest company as its market value tumbled by $623 billion.

Tencent Interactive Entertainment Group VP Zhang Wei commented on its cultural promotion: "With the strong support of national policies and regulators, the gaming industry will surely provide broader value in more fields."
NetEase senior VP Wang Yi commented at the conference: "NetEase will better shoulder this responsibility and respond to the expectations of society."

miHoYo president and co-founder Liu Wei added: "miHoYo uses intellectual property to interpret traditional culture and innovate. When a player understands all the cultural elements hidden in the details of the game, whether he is foreigner or Chinese, he would recognise Chinese culture."

Only last week, calls were made for stronger limits on young gamers in China, despite claiming to have fixed "video game addiction".