"SARFT's game approval authority has been cancelled" is a misunderstanding of the policy

On August 13, the State Council announced a new batch of administrative approval adjustments, including a regulation on electronic publications in cooperation with overseas institutions. It is generally believed that imported games will no longer require approval from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. In fact, this is a pure misunderstanding of the policy. The aforementioned cancelled administrative approval has basically nothing to do with imported games.

Yesterday, the "Decision of the State Council on Canceling and Adjusting a Batch of Administrative Approval Items and Other Matters" was officially released. According to this decision, a total of 45 administrative approval items were canceled and delegated. Among them, Article 31 shows that the "Approval for Electronic Publications Publishing Units to Cooperate with Overseas Institutions to Publish Electronic Publications" originally under the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television has been canceled.

This decision was also understood by some media as: "The State Council announced the cancellation of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television's function of approving overseas games."

This is a complete misreading.

In fact, the regulations concerning overseas electronic publications that were cancelled this time came from the "Decision of the State Council on Establishing Administrative Licenses for Administrative Approval Items That Must Be Retained" issued on June 29, 2004. The administrative approval that was cancelled is Article 329 in the annex of this document. The implementing agency stipulated at that time was the General Administration of Press and Publication, which is now the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

Also in the appendix of this document released in 2004, Article 328 reads: "Approval for publishing electronic publications (including Internet game works) authorized by overseas copyright owners", and the implementing agency is also the General Administration of Press and Publication.

Obviously, Article 328 is the approval that is closely related to games, and this approval has not been cancelled.

Some people in the game industry also confirmed the above situation, confirming that imported games still need to be pre-approved by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, and the entire process has not changed. Imported games all use the "authorization" model stipulated in Article 328, rather than the "cooperation" model involved in Article 329. Another insider revealed that Article 329 mainly involves the content of optical disc media.

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