If You Want to Sell Your Video Games to Chinese Players, Here are 7 Advice.
Why should you pay attention to the Chinese gaming market?
Simplely speaking, it’s a super ultra market.
The Challenges to Join the Chinese Market
- Language threshold. People from any country tend to play games in their own language.
- Audit threshold. Chinese games have a strict review system
Some Advice
1. Localization: Provide Chinese language options for your games
For game publishers, offering Chinese localization is critical, whether distributing through STEAM Global or local platforms, with “没有中文！(No Chinese language!)” being a common complaint among Chinese players on STEAM.
Chinese players often disregard games without Chinese language support, highlighting the importance of indicating Chinese localization even for games with minimal in-game text.
Chinese is divided into Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. There are more players using the former. If your time is limited, you can give priority to Simplified Chinese.
2. You can use English dubbing
If you are unable to provide high-quality Chinese dubbing, you can continue to use English dubbing, as long as you provide Chinese subtitles.
The poor Chinese dubbing is worse than just using English dubbing.
3. You don’t need to worry about your game genres
There are too many players in China. No matter how niche your game is, you can find enough players in China, as long as your game is fun.
4. Chinese players like cute style
Chinese players are very sensitive to art styles and generally do not take well to American-style graphics; a cuter style would be more appealing.
5. You can promote your game on Chinese media platforms
Compared with platforms such as YouTube and Twitter, Chinese gamers are more concentrated on Chinese platforms.
- BiliBili is China’s leading anime, comics, and games (ACG) community where people can create, watch, and share engaging videos and livestreams, with about 320 million MAU.
- Douyin, the twin of TikTok, the social media platform with the largest number of users in China.
6. Don’t preach
Don’t try to be your players’ moral teacher. Everyone, whether they are Chinese or people from other countries, do not want to be preached to by others when they play games.
7. Steam
If you want to list your game directly in China, then your game needs to pass the review of the regulatory authorities, which is a difficult process for foreign companies to handle. A better strategy is to find a local Chinese publisher.
Another strategy is to put it on Steam. Games on Steam do not require review by Chinese regulatory authorities, and a large number of Chinese players are using Steam. This would be an easy choice.
