Reuters reports that China may withdraw a series of sweeping new restrictions on gaming announced in December 2023, and that the country's gaming regulator has removed the proposed rule changes entirely from the website of the State Administration of Newspapers and Publications.

The proposed changes, which apparently appeared without warning to gaming companies, included a requirement that:

The scope and abruptness of the proposal dealt a blow to Chinese gaming companies such as TenCent and NetEase.

A few weeks later, the Chinese government indicated that it was ready to ease up a bit and reportedly dismissed those responsible for proposing the changes, stating that it would improve the rules by "seriously studying" public opinion.

Now, however, the new rules have disappeared entirely, and a 404 error is being displayed instead. Reuters reports that this is unusual: 86Research analyst Charlie Chai said, "The overwhelming negative response from investors, businesses, and the public seems to have caught the authorities off guard."

Just because the proposed changes were removed from the National Newspaper and Publication Bureau's website does not necessarily mean that they were completely removed. Xiaoyue Hu, an analyst at Haitong Securities, said the removal of the page may indicate that "further changes" to the proposed rules are underway.

However, Hu added that previous proposed regulatory changes usually remain on government websites after the public consultation period has changed, which is why the deletion is noteworthy.

Whatever the reason for the removal or the final outcome of the proposed rule change, at least money officials are cautiously pleased: immediately after the page was removed, Tencent and NetEase's stock prices soared.