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Assassin’s Creed Identity was identified as one of the games that were taken down from the App Store in China. This happened as Apple is cracking down on illegal apps that can be installed on iOS.
Why Apple removed apps on the Chinese App Store
As per Reuters, Apple already took out around 39,000 games and these are just part of the total 46,000 apps that were removed from the App Store since these are being used without a proper license from the government.
It was said that the case is severe because only 74 games have remained out of the 1,500 paid games that are on the store. While the games have official developers and publishers most of them do not have an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) that are being issued by the Chinese government.
The 39,000 game apps were discarded in just a day, making it the largest number of removal in a single time. Apple has set a deadline for game publishers to obtain the required license so they can stay in the App Store but apparently, many were still unable to obtain one and it is already due.
The purge happened because of the 2016 Chinese law that requires developers to get a license when publishing apps. While many are willing to follow this, foreign developers lament that getting the license is extremely hard so this is probably one reason why many of them skipped this rule.
Apple and Android comply
Now, as both Android and Apple comply with the Chinese law, they have to remove many unlicensed apps from their respective app stores. As per 9to5Mac, the original deadline for obtaining the license for developers was the end of July 2020 and since many were still unable to do so, it was extended up to Dec. 31.
Now, it appears that even with the new deadline, most of the publishers still can’t get their licenses resulting in the removal of their apps. As mentioned earlier, even big games such as Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed and 2K Game’s NBA 2K20 were taken out, proving how difficult it is to be approved.
