Blockbuster Chinese games said to boycott Huawei and Xiaomi app stores over revenue tax

The two most anticipated Chinese games this autumn will not be available on the app stores of popular Chinese phone brands Huawei, Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo amid disagreement over revenue sharing, according to people familiar with the situation.

Lilith Games’ Rise of Kingdoms and miHoYo’s Genshin Impact have both racked up millions of preregistered users ahead of the China National Day holiday. But the two developers announced last Friday that they would not be available on Huawei and Xiaomi pre-loaded app stores. The two games have also disappeared from the app stores run by Vivo and Oppo.

The withdrawals come after the game developers demanded that the app stores take less than a proposed 50 per cent cut of revenue from game sales on their platforms, according to two people familiar with the situation, who declined to be named as the information is not public.

Both Huawei and Xiaomi declined to comment for this story. Lilith Games and miHoYo did not immediately respond to requests for comment by the Post.

The stand-off comes in the same week that 13 Western tech companies including Spotify, Epic Games and Match Group formed a coalition to push back at the so-called platform tax that Apple takes from game sales via its app store.

Most Chinese Android-based app stores have historically demanded a 50 per cent cut of the revenue generated by mobile apps on their platforms.