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sneak
It's interesting to me that this is regarded as anything short of Apple engaging in state-mandated censorship.

IMO the headline should be Apple censors 39,000 apps to comply with Chinese law.

rzz3
It won’t stop until US tech companies stop giving into this shit.
__m
By leaving a market of 1.4 billion people?
devwastaken
If maximum money is your only worth then your company has no standards - and therefore is untrustable to make good decisions towards consumers. Which explains google and apple pretty well.
kevincox
Unfortunately all large tech companies are public and it does in fact seem that this is really all that shareholders care about.

We have no reason to believe that they will do anything other than attempt to maximize their share value.

zepto
It’s not just about maximizing share value - it’s a prisoners dilemma.

If one company declines to do business, someone else will do it, and may end up with market power.

We can’t solve this problem by expecting individual companies to sacrifice themselves.

Even if they did, it wouldn’t solve the problem because it would open the door to even worse companies taking their position.

The only solution is at the political level.

[dead] sieabahlpark
Something something China shouldn't be allowed to participate in free trade if they don't return the favor.
rzz3
If we give in to every demand of the Chinese government, things continue as they are. Those 1.4 billion people, hopefully, would demand the products being offered and policies would be (slowly) forced to change.
barnaclejive
In what world do you think this it is OK not take action? Set aside what ever you think about China "The takedowns come amid a crackdown on unlicensed games by Chinese authorities." unlicensed, plain and simple for ya there
sneak
A government requiring a license for publishing is censorship.
throwbacktictac
It doesn't seem like it a license to publish that's being controlled. It sounds more akin to a business license to collect money in app. The article alludes to ad supported games still being eligible for publication. This likely has something to do capital flight controls in China.

“However, this major pivot to only accepting paid games that have a game license, coupled with China’s extremely low number of foreign game licenses approved this year, will probably lead more game developers to switch to an ad-supported model for their Chinese versions,”

[dead] sieabahlpark
You have no actual idea how acquiring said licenses actually work. So stop pretending you do.