Why aren’t Chinese games popular abroad?
China’s gaming scene is massive, but it is also absurdly insular. While there are a few global games that rank among China’s most popular, many of the country’s top games were developed domestically. But few of them ever make the jump overseas; games like Jianxia Qingyuan 3 and Demi-Gods and Semi Devils have millions of players in China, but they’re not even available outside the country.
So why don’t Chinese games export well? It’s a question that the Chinese gaming community itself ponders regularly (Netease Games recently ran a special feature on it, for example). Having followed the industry closely for quite a while (and being an international gamer myself), I have a few of my own ideas.
1. Difficulty localizing
Most Chinese games aren’t even available abroad, and part of the reason is that Chinese companies often find it too difficult or too expensive to localize their games in English. Finding skilled Chinese-to-English translators in China is not easy; finding skilled English voice actors is even more difficult. And of course, Chinese games and their systems (including their monetization schemes) are designed with Chinese players in mind. Since Chinese player preferences often differ from preferences in other countries, localizing Chinese games for release abroad also often means reworking entire parts of the game, and re-thinking your business model completely.
2. Developer indifference
Localizing games well takes a ton of effort, as I just explained, and many developers don’t see the point in bothering. While it would be nice to have a global hit game, China has a huge and still-expanding gaming market, and you can still make buckets of money releasing a game that’s only ever going to be available in China. Given that, what’s the point in even bothering to try in the international market? All the market a game developer or publisher needs is available in China.
3. Thematic concerns
Another issue is that many Chinese games are based on a relatively small group of themes, none of which are particularly popular outside China. Three Kingdoms games, of which there are dozens and probably hundreds if you include mobile games, are wildly popular in China, but outside it most people don’t even know the basic story that well (and many haven’t heard of it at all). The same is true of games based on Journey to the West. Many Chinese games are so steeped in Chinese history, literature, and mythology, that they become somewhat incomprehensible to outsiders. They’re designed for gamers who know the basic stories already, and international gamers often don’t.
4. Lack of originality
Yup, I said it. While there are some Chinese game developers out there making unique games, the majority of them aren’t. An extremely popular formula for Chinese game developers is to take a hot game genre internationally and create a Chinese version using one of the Chinese themes I just mentioned. MOBA games are popular abroad? Make a Chinese MOBA based on the Three Kingdoms. MMORPGs are doing well? Make an MMO based on Journey to the West.
That said, you can’t really blame Chinese devs for doing this, because it often leads to success in China. Plus, there is an external reason why many developers aren’t particularly creative:
5. Censorship
China’s government has rules about what kind of games are permitted, and although the government almost never directly intervenes, game companies tend to censor themselves pretty heavily to ensure they remain on the right side of the line. That means that all sorts of things are off-limits. Horror games are pretty much off the table. Anything that could be taken as an allegorical reference to the downsides of modern Chinese society is risky. Anything that portrays China’s government or military in a negative light is a no-go. These aren’t hard-and-fast laws, but they’re the rules of engagement most Chinese developers choose to play by, and as a result those devs have fewer options and fewer avenues for creativity when designing games.
For example, consider the famous “No Russian” level from Modern Warfare 2. Love it or hate it, that level got people the world over talking about the game, and it definitely contributed to the game’s global success. But such a level would be impossible to include in a Chinese game. No mainstream Chinese developer would be brash enough to portray a Chinese soldier massacring civilians in a game.
6. Lack of diversity
Sneak into the conference rooms of most major international developers, and you’re likely to find a pretty diverse staff. The companies that produce globally-popular games are often themselves quite global, with staff members coming from all over the world working together to create the best possible game. But sneak into the offices of a Chinese game developer, and you’re likely to find almost exclusively Chinese staffers. That’s not to say there’s anything inherently wrong with that, of course, but it does mean that Chinese companies don’t tend to understand overseas gaming markets and gamers’ desires very well. That leads to the development of games that don’t really play with foreign audiences.
Could this change? Could China produce a globally-popular game? Maybe, but I’m not particularly sanguine about it in the short-run, and neither are Chinese gamers. In the aforementioned Netease special feature on why Chinese games do poorly abroad, Netease closed the column with a question: do you think China will produce a globally-popular game? Readers overwhelmingly (more than 92% as of this writing) responded: no way.
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