Ubisoft and MiHoYo, the developers behind Assassin's Creed and Genshin Impact, are among the first studios to sign up for Nvidia Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE), a new AI-driven tech platform said to create more lifelike video game characters.
23.12.2023 - 02:03 / tech.hindustantimes.com
Regulators in China announced on Friday a wide range of rules aimed at curbing spending and rewards that encourage video games, dealing a blow to the world's biggest games market, which returned to growth this year.
The new rules, which will effectively set spending limits for online games, sparked panic among investors, wiping off nearly $80 billion in market value from China's two biggest gaming companies, as investors sought to gauge the potential impact on earnings and more restrictions in the offing.
Online games will now be banned from giving players rewards if they log in every day, if they spend on the game for the first time or if they spend several times on the game consecutively. All are common incentive mechanisms in online games.
Shares in Tencent Holdings, the world's biggest gaming company, tumbled as much as 16% at one point, while those of its closest rival, NetEase, plunged as much as 25% after the National Press and Publication Administrations published the new draft rules.
Shares of tech investor Prosus followed Tencent lower, losing 14.2% in early trade on Friday and were among the biggest fallers on the pan-European stock index. Prosus owns a 26% stake in Tencent.
"It's not necessarily the regulation itself - it's the policy risk that's too high," said Steven Leung, executive director of institutional sales at broker UOB Kay Hian in Hong Kong. "People had thought this kind of risk should have been over and had started to look at fundamentals again. It hurts confidence a lot."
When asked about the draft rules' impact, Tencent Games' vice president Vigo Zhang said Tencent will not need to fundamentally change "its reasonable business model or operations" for games, adding that the company has been strictly implementing regulatory requirements.
Zhang added that minors had been spending a historically low level of money and time on Tencent's games since 2021 when minor protection became a focus for Beijing.
NetEase declined to comment.
Beijing has become increasingly tough on video games over the years. In 2021, China set strict playtime limits for under 18s and suspended approvals of new video games for about eight months, citing gaming addiction concerns.
Although the crackdown formally ended last year with the resumption of new game approvals, regulators have continued to impose restrictions to curb "in-game" spending. The new rules revealed on Friday are the most explicit yet aimed at curbing in-game spending. Besides banning reward features, games are also required to set limits on how much players can top up their digital wallets for in-game spending.
"The removal of these incentives is likely to reduce daily active users and in-app revenue, and could eventually force publishers to
Ubisoft and MiHoYo, the developers behind Assassin's Creed and Genshin Impact, are among the first studios to sign up for Nvidia Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE), a new AI-driven tech platform said to create more lifelike video game characters.
Amazon.com Inc. introduced a new feature that mimics Apple Inc.'s AirPlay while working across different platforms, setting the stage for iPhone and Android users to wirelessly stream video to its TV hardware. The feature, called Matter Casting, is part of a push by Amazon to create interoperable services — an alternative to the propriety technology developed by Apple and Google. It will make it easier for iOS and Android phones to send video to Amazon devices, such as its Fire TV boxes and sticks, as well as the Echo Show 15 smart display.
China removed an official at a government body overseeing its press and publications regulator, five sources who were briefed on the matter said, days after Chinese gaming stocks were hit by proposed rules to curb spending on video games. Feng Shixin was removed last week from his position as head of the publishing unit of the Communist Party's Publicity Department, the sources said. The department oversees the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) which in turn regulates China's vast video games sector.
In yet another blow to China as it attempts to maintain a path towards self-reliance, Dutch-based lithography systems manufacturer ASML has revoked shipments of some of its DUV machines thanks to a request brought forward by the Biden administration. The export ban for such equipment was supposed to come into effect after a few weeks, which would have given China a little breathing room to procure sufficient machinery to continue mass producing chips for various applications, but the U.S. had other plans.
AMD's best gaming CPU, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, is currently discounted to $317 in China with an AM5 combo deal going for just $466 US.
Chinese developer FireWo Games has announced Chinese-style open-world action RPG The Bustling World for PC (Steam). A release date was not announced. A Kickstarter campaign seeking $80,000 in funding was also launched.
NVIDIA has officially launched its GeForce RTX 4090 D graphics card in China which comes with very similar performance as the original RTX 4090.
CyberStep visual novel game brand Rabbitfoot has announced visual novel TO THE TOP: Ato no Ijin-tachi for PlayStation 4, Switch, PC, iOS, and Android. It will launch in spring 2024 with language support for English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, and more to be announced.
China's draft online video gaming rules were designed to promote the healthy development of the industry, regulators said on Saturday, adding that the government would further improve the proposed rules after "earnestly studying" public views.
New rules have been laid out by regulators in China that aim to reduce the amount of money gamers spend within video games.
Chinese regulators have announced far-reaching curbs on monetisation and reward systems for online games, in a move that has wiped almost $80 billion from the market value of the world's biggest videogame publisher Tencent and their rival NetEase. Under the new government restrictions, which are pending final approval, online games in China will be banned from giving players rewards for logging in every day, spending money within the game for the first time, or spending money several times consecutively.
The Garfield Movie is getting its own video game.