In the first week of July 2020, Apple removed more than 2,500 games from the China mainland iOS App Store, including Supercell’s Hay Day. The action followed stricter enforcement of China’s existing requirement that online games obtain a government approval number before distribution. It was a China-storefront compliance purge—not a worldwide shutdown of Hay Day and not a new 2026 event.
GamesBeat reported on July 14, 2020 that Apple was removing the titles at the Chinese government’s request. The report was updated on June 18, 2025, but the removals themselves occurred in July 2020.
Which games disappeared?
Hay Day was one of the best-known names affected. Contemporary examples also included Nonstop Chuck Norris from Flaregames, Contract Killer: Zombies 2 from Glu, ASMR Slicing from Crazy Labs and Solitaire from Zynga.
There was no public, authoritative master list covering every delisted title. Sensor Tower’s count, reported by GamesBeat, measured games that had ranked in App Store game subcategories. That methodology means the estimate could miss very small or obscure games that never reached the measured rankings.
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The relevant geography was the China mainland Apple storefront. A game could remain listed in the United States or another country while being unavailable to customers whose App Store region was mainland China.
The licensing rule behind the purge
China’s NPPA approval requirement
China requires online games distributed in the country to receive approval from the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), the publishing regulator identified in Apple’s current App Store Connect guidance. Industry coverage often calls the resulting government game-publication approval number an “ISBN.” In this context, it is not simply the ordinary book identifier associated with that acronym.
The requirement existed before July 2020. What changed was enforcement: Apple moved from allowing some games to remain listed without the approval information to making missing documentation a storefront-compliance problem.
What Apple asks publishers to provide
Apple’s current process requires the approval number plus supporting records, including the ISBN issuing letter or approval reply, a current business license and, when applicable, authorization documentation from the operator or publishing partner. The number must correspond to the correct game and the relevant publisher or operator; entering an unrelated number does not satisfy the requirement.
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Apple’s status documentation lists “Missing Game registration number” as a reason a game can be unavailable in China mainland. These current pages explain the compliance mechanism, but they are not a contemporaneous Apple press release about each 2020 removal.
Why July 2020 enforcement intensified
The contemporary report said developers were given until July 31, 2020 to enter the approval number and submit the supporting documents. Games lacking the required information were expected to remain unavailable in China until the compliance record was supplied.
That deadline explains why the first week of July produced a concentrated wave of delistings. The action was enforcement of an existing licensing regime, rather than the creation of a brand-new rule on July 1.
How many games and how much business were involved?
Sensor Tower’s estimates, as reported by GamesBeat, provide the best available scale indicators. They should not be read as an audited Apple total or an official Chinese government census.
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| Measure | Reported figure | Qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Games removed | More than 2,500 | Sensor Tower estimate for the first week of July 2020, based on games that had ranked in App Store game subcategories |
| Combined lifetime gross revenue in China | $34.7 million | Sensor Tower estimate for the measured removed titles |
| Downloads in China | More than 133 million | Sensor Tower estimate |
| Titles with fewer than 10,000 downloads | Nearly 2,000 | Downloads counted since 2012, according to the report |
The figures show why the purge could be commercially modest in aggregate but severe for individual publishers. Most affected games were small, yet a delisting can eliminate a title’s discoverability, new downloads and China-specific in-app revenue.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Was Hay Day banned worldwide?
No. The reported action concerned availability in China’s Apple storefront. It did not establish a global ban, a shutdown of Supercell’s servers or an individual content prohibition against Hay Day.
A title can be listed elsewhere while missing from mainland China. Conversely, an app already installed on a Chinese-region device may remain on that device after its store listing disappears, while future downloads, updates or payments can fail. Storefront delisting also does not by itself prove that the game’s servers have stopped operating.
The available reporting does not establish Hay Day’s current China listing status, a title-specific approval decision or a restoration date. Those questions require a current, title-level check rather than extrapolation from the 2020 event.
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Was this a ban on foreign games?
Not in formal terms. The stated basis was missing Chinese government approval, and that rule applied to games regardless of the developer’s nationality. The evidence does not show that every foreign title was targeted because it was foreign or that Hay Day was singled out for its content.
Foreign publishers could nevertheless face greater practical obstacles. Approval commonly involves a Chinese publishing or operating entity, local corporate records, translated filings and a regulator-approved submission route. Those requirements can make compliance harder for overseas and small teams even when the legal rule is the same.
Why the overall market impact was limited but the signal was large
GamesBeat reported that China generated $12.6 billion in App Store revenue in 2019. The same report quoted Niko Partners analyst Lisa Cosmas Hanson saying that 97 of China’s top 100 games already had the required license. The figures suggest that the purge removed many low-performing or marginally established titles rather than the market’s core blockbusters.
- Aggregate revenue: The removed catalog represented a small share of the broader China App Store business described in the report.
- Publisher operations: Unlicensed developers lost listing access and the ability to acquire new China-region users until documentation was accepted.
- Regulatory meaning: Apple demonstrated that prior presence in the storefront was not proof that a game was permanently exempt from the approval system.
For a small studio, administrative, legal and partner costs could exceed the title’s China revenue. For a large publisher, the same event was a compliance deadline and documentation project rather than necessarily a market exit.
What players and publishers should take from the event
For players
- Check the App Store country or region: availability in another country does not establish mainland-China availability.
- Do not assume that changing an Apple ID region makes distribution lawful or guarantees downloads, updates, payments or server access.
- If a previously installed game vanishes from search, that indicates a storefront change, not automatically a worldwide shutdown.
For developers and publishers
- Obtain the game’s NPPA approval number through the applicable Chinese publishing process.
- Prepare the ISBN issuing letter or approval reply, current business license and any operator or publishing-partner authorization.
- Check that the game identity, corporate information and submitted metadata match the approved filing.
- Submit the information in App Store Connect and resolve any “Missing Game registration number” status.
- Plan for a local operating or publishing partner where the approval route requires one, and weigh those costs against expected China revenue.
What remains unverified
The 2020 report does not provide a complete removal list, title-by-title approval status, a direct Apple explanation for every game or reliable restoration dates. It also does not show how much of the combined $34.7 million came from Hay Day specifically. Those limits matter when interpreting the event: the evidence supports a large, estimated compliance purge, not a precise census or a claim that one recognizable game drove the financial totals.
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