(Yicai Global) Jan. 16 -- Growth in China's mobile gaming market slowed for the fifth consecutive year in 2018 as a lack of new quality games kept buyers at bay.

Sales of mobile games gained 15.4 percent to CNY134 billion (USD19.7 billion) last year, state-backed Beijing Business Today reported yesterday, citing data from domestic research firm CNG. The researcher is a part of Joynews, which has exclusive authorization from the National Radio and Television Administration to produce the Chinese Gaming Industry Report.

Growth was down 26.3 points from the 41.7 percent in 2017, and marked a fifth year of slowing since a 256.9 percent peak in 2013.

A lack of new high-quality games and a limited range of genres were the main reasons behind the decline, the report said. Players have gradually increased the standards they demand from the gaming experience in recent years, and are more critical over quality, the gaming experience and other factors, it added, saying they make more independent choices on the games they buy instead of following trends -- and this makes it harder to attract new players.

External factors, such as the regulator shutting down game license approvals temporarily, also inhibited growth. It disrupted the launches of many new games, and this led to fewer games hitting the market last year, according to the report.

Growth in users has also been slowing alongside the declining rise in sales, though it rebounded slightly this year to 9.2 percent, giving a total 650 million mobile gamers -- most of which join through social media platforms like WeChat. The expansion in 2017 was just 4.9 percent, following on from a 248.4 percent gain to 310 million in 2012.

Things could be looking brighter in future, as the entertainment regulator lifted its suspension of game license approvals at the end of last year, publishing a list of 80 newly approved games on Dec. 29. It published another 84 in January, with the majority of these being mobile games from small and medium-sized developers.

This is good news for the industry, said Zhu Jialiang, chief executive at a Beijing-based gaming company. He believes that the approval ban had prevented many companies from releasing their new games.

However, the flood of newly approved games could lead to more competition, other industry sources said, adding that the key still lies in whether or not the games can win users' hearts by offering superior quality to similar products.

Whether or not the resumption of approvals will bring industry revenue back to earlier levels remains to be seen, the sources added, saying developers will be unable to monetize their games without a license, however many players they may have.

Editor: James Boynton