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."

Comments

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 out to lunch or buy the keg for the company party. These things are what make great software... happy programmers! Sure a monkey could do some of the work, but I don't have the patience or time to wait for a monkey to get it right. I'd rather overpay and enjoy the process of creating a product than save a few bucks and drive myself to an early grave due to the stress it causes me!

A lot of my favorite movies are Chinese...

[sesshomaru]

Films like Green Snake and The Magic Blade 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 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.