(Riya Singh, Intern Journalist): Due to reform in copyright policies in China, Apple has deleted more than 4,500 computer games from the Chinese App Store within three days. Both app developers require an official Chinese regulatory license to put their games on the App Store. Before this new licensing law came about, players were able to let their games live on the App Store as they were waiting for approval of their license. The latest law states developers will need to obtain a license before their applications are published.
The latest law, introduced earlier this year, came into effect on June 30 leading to Apple purging the App Store from all games and applications by developers who have not yet been given official licenses. The initial response from Apple has been to suspend changes on both of these devices. Both those frozen games are gone from the App Store now.
Over the first two days in July, more than 3,000 games have been deleted from the China App Store and Apple has warned developers about that. When the law came into effect the company had to take steps. On Apple’s App Store this is considered one of the greatest software purges ever.
China only issues about 1,500 game licenses per year, so it takes around six months to a year to complete the process itself. To all of those games taken off the App Store will have to wait a long time before they will turn back up.
Apple disabled 1,571 applications July 1, 1,805 July 2, and July 3, 1,276. It can be stopped by developers however by not upgrading their software. It is estimated that over 20,000 apps in total could be affected as purge will continue.
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