A set of draft rules released by China's National Press and Public Administration (NPPA), the country's video gaming regulator, took the industry by surprise on the Friday before Christmas. Shares of Tencent and NetEase, two prominent publishers, plunged as investors worried of another clampdown on the sector, at one point erasing almost $80 billion in value.
Beijing now seems to be engaging in damage control. First, the NPPA said it would "carefully study" public views to the draft views in a post just one day after it released the new measures, then followed it up with a Christmas Day approval of over a hundred new online games, including some from Tencent and NetEase.
