The Games Industry In China

The increasingly important role that China is taking on the world stage, both politically and economically, has been reflected in the gaming industry of the last few years. Last week BusinessWeekOnline published an article looking at 'China's Online Gaming Craze.' The piece looks at the huge surge in online players in China, and estimates that the online gaming market for the country will surpass $2 Billion by the end of the decade. Relatedly, Simon Carless and the Gamasutra crew attended the ChinaJoy event in Shanghai last week, and return bearing information on how the games business ticks over there. Articles include another look at the online gaming market, the business of outsourcing in the country, and a lot of general information on the state of the industry. From that article: "In terms of a long-term bet, especially with the Chinese economy continuing to grow swiftly, it's clear that it's the domestic Chinese market is one that most major game companies want to be in. In addition, it needs to be in a way that the Chinese government feels comfortable with. Thus, we're seeing Electronic Arts moving its Pogo casual game service into China, and other companies such as Ubisoft building branch offices."

Competition?

[weasello]

I'm really hoping that this will increase the level of competition in the gaming industry, so we get more truly groundbreaking... awesome... /fun/ games released.

I'm getting pretty sick of the cookie cutter releases that just keep pouring onto the shelves.

Of course, worst case scenario is China will just take over writing all of our crap games and we'll shutdown all of dev studios and be stuck in the same place, just with cheaper games...

Re:Competition?

[jhfry]

Cheaper games my ass... cheaper for the developer maybe... when was the last time your saw retail sofware prices drop due to outsourcing?

What I don't understand is why companies like the idea of paying people who don't speak our language or understand our culture to develop software for us. Sure they save money, but at what expense... loss of customers, delays, and shoddy work. My next software project will be entirely developed in the US where I can build a culture around my product... take my developers

Red Blindness

[Allen Varney]

I wrote a similar article for The Escapist online gaming magazine, "Red Blindness [escapistmagazine.com]". (The link goes to the HTML text version of the article, for those who hate the Escapist graphic approach.)

Re:Yo Ho ho, and the chinese market.

[cmdrpaddy]

Well its either get into the market and hope you make some actual sales or not go into the market and just have their games pirated anyway.

Re:Yo Ho ho, and the chinese market.

[Astarica]

We're talking about the online market here, which almost certainly means subscription-based games which is extremely resilient to piracy. Nothing else could possibly succeed in the piracy capital of the world.

It's A Tidal wave...

[__aaclcg7560]

How many versions of Mah-Jong do we need?

Hmmm

[boyter]

I dont know if I agree with this. Chinese under 14 are all part of the single child generation and as such they get everything they could possibly want, so points to the game manufacturers there. Over 14 they are under so much pressure to do well in exams to get into University they dont have time for games (or anything else for that matter). I guess this means there is a large market for the big N, however Chinese tend to hate anything Japanese (although they love Sony... go figure). I dunno. I work in China in a IT company and most of the guys I see are conforming to the Asian sterotype playing Starcraft and Red Alert 2. Most of then havent heard of the newer games. Other then WoW I cant think of many mainstream games that have taken root here.

A lot of my favorite movies are Chinese...

[sesshomaru]

Films like Green Snake [kfccinema.com] and The Magic Blade [gotterdammerung.org] have always been close to my heart. Now, if you are like me (and God help you if you are) and you watch a film like the two mentioned, you immediately think, "How would I make a Pen and Paper Role Playing Game out of the ideas presented in those films?" You might try dragging out your old copy of Oriental Adventures to see how TSR did it back in the day, or you might just seek out Outlaws of the Water Margin [tcp-ip.or.jp] if you have a lot of time on your hands.

The point is, it would be incredibly stupid, almost unbelievably stupid, to accuse the Chinese of a lack of absolutely brilliant native source materials for Fantasy based games. The Japanese have been plundering it for years (rightly so, and I appreciate their efforts at times... though I'm afraid I've never been a huge Dragonball Z fan, no offense intended). So, what we have is not a question of imagination, but a question of rules. How exactly does snake spirit magic work? What are the differences between the powers of Buddhist Monks and Taoist Hermits? How do you model various martial arts sword fighting techniques in an online RPG? Would the Five Venoms make good boss characters? etc.

But creating rules for these things are trivial if the developers follow my advice and steal, steal, steal. Heck, the Japanese did it when building their own video gaming industry, unless you think Final Fantasy I owes nothing to Dungeons and Dragons.

We'll see, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see some brilliant games coming out of China.

Practice makes perfect...

[Randym]

The quality of Chinese games is fast-improving, and there may be something to the idea that multiple-participant online gaming appeals to the collectivist spirit of mainlanders. "Players have interactive relations and they work together to accomplish missions," says Shanda spokesman Zhuge Hui. "This ensures the demand of online games" in China, he says.

I can't wait for Counter-Revolution: The MMORG. Can your cadre become the knife-edge of the Counter-Revolution? You'll need both good fighting skills and clever thinking to keep on top!

They can Afford it?

[rtb61]

So the adverage chinese worker earning $70 odd per month will be spend 20% of their gross salary (before tax gross, rather than the other gross, although both are applicable) to play world of warcraft, cool, those guys must be desperate.

I know, there is no way in hell that I would spend 20% of my wage to play a MMORPG.

Of course if they price it so that chinese workers can afford it, I know whose servers I will be playing on.

Re:They can Afford it?

[MattMacD]

No, the "not very skilled" workers are not earning 4000 yuan a month.

($ = US dollar)

I think just over 1000 yuan is average, but I don't know really.

Never

[XpL1CiT]

The Chineese will never have a thriving industry based on creativeness (gaming, software design, etc.) until they iron out their MONSTEROUS IP problems. There is simply no incentive to create IP in China as you have absolutely no protection. Honestly, it helps the rest of the world. SHHH, don't tell them.