What just happened? Beginning earlier this year, Apple began removing apps from its regional store at the request of the Chinese government. Paid apps, or those with in-app purchases, must be licensed with an ISBN issued by China. Apple gave developers a fair warning that unlicensed applications would be removed. To meet the deadline, Cupertino carried out his biggest purge to date on the last day of 2020.
Apple removed more than 46,000 apps from its store in China on Thursday, marking the biggest single-day purge of all time. The games accounted for the vast majority of exclusions, with around 39,000 titles withdrawn. Notable examples include Assassin’s Creed Identity and Ubisoft’s NBA 2K20. Research firm Qimai said only 74 of China’s top 1,500 games remain on the App Store.
Reuters notes that the removals came after Chinese regulators began cracking down on unlicensed mobile software. In China, paid applications must have an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) issued by the Chinese government. The issuance of ISBNs across the country is very strict, partly due to censorship laws. For example, anything that makes reference to Winnie the Pooh was banned when viral memes ironically compared “silly teddy bear” to President Xi Jinping.
The ISBN rule does not apply to free games, however. Several F2P games remain in the store, including Call of Duty: Mobile, Honor of Kings and Game for Peace, the Chinese version of PUBG. Apple started warning about removals in February, and several developers reportedly switched to a free-to-play model to avoid going through the process of applying the ISBN.
Today’s purge was the second this year. Apple removed almost 30,000 apps during the summer, most of which were also games. Apple did not comment on the situation and it is not clear how the mass exclusions will affect its 30 percent share, but we can play with some polite speculation.
Most of the nearly 75,000 excluded apps were probably junk that had generated all the money they were going to earn. As we have seen in many other digital markets, such as Steam and others, instant developers flood the store with useless apps to make money fast. In addition, in July, Niko Partners analysts said 97 of the 100 highest-grossing games on the App Store had legal ISBNs. Therefore, any impact is likely to be minimal for Apple.