BEIJING, Sept 3 Reuters - China's JD.com has told sellers that it will sell 87 games including Activision Blizzard Inc.'s Call of Duty and Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizon that they were not approved titles, local media reported.
The company, one of China's largest e-commerce platforms that also host third-party vendors, issued the notice on Thursday, the State-backed China Youth Daily quoted on Friday.
The games can no longer be sold on JD.com's marketplace, and the company will manage this closely, it said, adding it planned to apply high pressure on the issue, the newspaper cited JD.com as saying.
It was unclear what led the company to change its strategy, but it follows new rules issued by Chinese regulators that let young people playing online games for more than 3 hours a week.
Games need approval from Chinese regulators before they are able to be sold on the world's largest videogame market. However, players can sometimes get games on the grey market via third-party sites using e-commerce platforms to sell books.
The ruling Communist Party's publicity department on Thursday urged the examination of gaming content to be strengthened in a lengthy critique of its culture and entertainment sectors.
In recent months, Chinese technology companies have been subject to heightened scrutiny by regulators that have cracked down on a multitude of issues including monopolistic behaviour and consumer rights.