This is a talk at A MAZE Berlin 2017. You can check the original audio here.

FAQ: China for indie game developers

I’ve been focused in China for the last year, working at a triple A mobile game company and now at indienova, whose focus is on indie games. I’ve talked with Chinese developers, publishers, stores, supporters of the local industry and also with Western developers and publishers interested in the Chinese market. In this talk I will give you a brief overview of what’s happening in China through a series of questions that always appear when we discuss this topic. The goal of this presentation is that you get an idea of the opportunities in China for indie games and that you know what are the important things to consider when entering the Chinese market.

The first question that comes when talking about the games industry in China is if people are actually allowed to play games in China. The answer is yes. Moreover, the Chinese market is now the largest game market in the World, thanks to its huge mobile game industry but also from 2 events that happened recently, in 2015: that Steam started accepting local payment systems (Alipay, WeChat Wallet and UnionPay) and that consoles were no longer banned. All this and the increase of penetration of high-speed internet and smartphones helped the growth of the market in recent years.

The next question is if people in China only people free-to-play games. The answer, of course, is no. However, if you ask this question to most people there they will say yes, because that’s what you can usually see everywhere and because of the long culture of free-to-play PC games due to the ban of consoles for so many years. However, there are still a small percentage of people who are interested on playing premium games and that are willing to pay for that. And because China is so big, that’s a very large amount of people. We’ve seen that with premium games like Monument Valley, This War of Mine and more recently with Hidden Folks. Premium games are also valued in China and this is only increasing.

Then, the next question from Western developers is if they can sell their games in China. Absolutely, however, there are some things to consider. At least in theory, all games distributed in China need to get a license number from the government, after passing a strict approval process. This regulation was applied to PC games since the last years and for mobile games October of last year. However, as today (April, 2017) in practice, Western developers can still publish games on Steam and iOS without this license (this is not the case for Chinese developers, who do need right now that license). This might change in the future but at least for now, it is possible to release it in China as you do in any other region. As some of you may know there are hundreds of Android stores in China and for most of them you do need this license number. This also applies to other PC digital stores, like TGP, Tencent’s store. And for getting a license, you need to be either a Chinese company or have a partnership with a Chinese company. So that’s one of the main reasons why most developers look for a Chinese publisher to publish their games in China. So yes, you can sell your games in China but it’s a bit more complicated that it might seem.

So, what games do Chinese players prefer? Most Chinese players like to play rogue-likes and sandbox games, especially if they have some kind of multiplayer mode, as competition is an important aspect in Chinese culture. Rogue-like games like The Binding of Isaac or Lost Castle, survival games like H1Z1 or Don't Starve, sandbox games like Terraria and Minecraft are very popular, as well as open world games like GTA and The Witcher series.

Another question that pops up is what’s a good price for indie games in China. It really depends on the game but usually, prices should be around half of the price in USD in the West. Some developers use amounts that end in 9 (like 29 RMB, or 39 RMB), which brings better results than the predetermined options that Steam suggests for the region. Pricing is very important in China!

Anime-style is one of the most popular art styles among Chinese players, as well as pixel art. But games with a unique art style like Monument Valley or Hidden Folks also got a lot of attention because of their visuals.

Another must in China is localization. But should you localize your game to Simplied or Traditional Chinese? If you can do both that will be ok as you will also target territories aside from Mainland China, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, but what you definitely need is Simplified Chinese. How can you do it if you don’t speak the language? You can hire a company to do it but you can also reach out to Chinese developers or members from the community to help you. At Indienova we have an initiative called Project Gutenberg in which we localize games to Simplified Chinese for free, no strings attached, so you we can lower the barrier for Western developers to enter China and help grow gaming culture in China. And as you may know, localization is not only translating the game to Chinese, you might also need to change some content so your game can resonate with the Chinese audience.

We’ve talked about indie games in China, but are there also local indie game developers? Absolutely. As in every part of the World indie game development is booming thanks to more channels and engines. We’ve seen a special increase of indies in China after 2015, in terms of number of people participating in game jams and games being released by Chinese developers. Some examples are: Candleman, a 3D puzzle game in which you control a little candleman, ICEY, a beat’em up with a narrator in similar vein as in The Stanley Parable, Lost Castle, a rogue-like beat’em that sold more than 100 thousand copies only in China, Core: Hardcore, a multiplayer fighting game with mechas and Yesterday, an isometric puzzle game made by a team of three girls from Beijing.

And the last question is, how do people find about new games in China? As in the West, social media is one of the main sources of information for players. But as in China most Western social networks are not available due to restrictions, players rely on Chinese services. The biggest one is WeChat, which offers features that you might find in Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other ones. Weibo is also very important, and it’s similar to Twitter, and there are also streaming services like Douyu which acts like Twitch in the West. Forums are also a good place to get information and SteamCN is the largest used for Steam games. So what you need to do is to open an account in these networks and start communicating with your players and fans. That’s also something in which a Chinese publisher can help, as well as helping in getting features with stores.

These have been some of the most frequently asked questions about China. I hope you can now have an idea of what is releasing a game in China and what are the things that you should have in mind. The Chinese market is huge and it’s growing even more, so it’s a good idea to consider it.