Small and medium-sized Chinese publishers populated the list approved by China, causing the Wall Street Journal to speculate that China is throwing a "lifeline" to smaller gaming companies that have "struggled since the freeze." Tencent and NetEase's missing appearance follows ongoing concerns over both companies' financial stability in the gaming market amid the Chinese government's freeze on licenses. In Tencent's case, the company lost $200 billion from its market value since last January and reported its first profit drop in nearly a decade, according to Bloomberg. The publisher went through company restructuring in Q4 2018 after the licensing shutdown. Meanwhile, NetEase's shares dropped by 11 percent in early August 2018, although CEO William Ding claims NetEase wasn't affected by government restructuring amid the game licensing freeze, according to a separate report from Bloomberg.