Original title: Rich cultural connotations, advanced technical level, precise demand control –
What do domestic games rely on to become popular overseas?
The overseas version of "Gu Jian Qi Tan" has been on the top of the international well-known game platform Steam hot-selling list for 3 days; "Yuan Shen" in the role of "Yun Jin" opera "Goddess Hack View" has been played on the overseas video platform YouTube for more than 7 million; mobile game PUBG MOBILE has set a record of 600 million downloads and 50 million active users in a week… In recent years, domestic games have been recognized and loved by more and more overseas users.
Which domestically produced games stand out better, how do they capture overseas user requests, and how can Chinese game makers go further as competition intensifies in the overseas gaming market?
"So beautiful it makes me cry"
At the exhibition site, there were people with golden wigs and vermilion masks diagonally, with cool shapes; some people had iconic red rabbit ear knots and waist-hanging prop bags on their heads, which were cute and full of vitality; some people wore gold, white, and black interactive robes, holding pipes, like noble and graceful gods… They wore exaggerated costumes and played the characters in the game "Yuan God" to express their love for this game.
In July this year, at the Japan Expo, a comprehensive animation exhibition held in Paris, France, the domestic game "Yuan Shen" was in the limelight, and there was an endless stream of animation enthusiasts and gamers in front of the booth. In order to get the peripheral gifts of the game, enthusiastic players lined up across half of the exhibition hall. The surrounding gifts were all sold out in just an hour, and those who came late could only regret returning.
In recent years, many domestic games have become popular overseas, from "Yuan Shen", which uses open-world role-playing as a selling point, to "Ghost Valley Eight Wilderness", which focuses on national style cultivation, and then to the martial arts style action game "Naraka: Bladepoint"… These works attract the attention of foreign players with unique and attractive Chinese cultural elements.
In the game character settings, "the original god" insisted on using Chinese names instead of English names, so that some overseas users impressed, and even set off a wave of learning pinyin overseas, YouTube a "original god" Chinese name pronunciation teaching video harvest over 2 million views.
"When our thousands of years of traditional culture is expressed through new technologies, it will become more intense and dynamic, and it will be more attractive to overseas people," said Chen Yu, vice-president of Tencent and president of the Photonics Studio Group. "In the past, we were improving our technical capabilities. The next step is to build our own IP universe to help game products continuously improve the breadth and depth of the IP matrix."
On Twitter, a Japanese user named "Harakami Kanji Research Institute" is very keen to explore the Chinese cultural elements in the game. What this player often does is to unearth some meaningful Chinese characters and sentences in "Harakami", and translate them into Japanese by looking up ancient books and combining his own understanding, so as to explain the meaning to more Japanese players.
The costumes, gestures, and lyrics of the game character "Yun Jin" integrate traditional Chinese opera cultural elements with the game’s own unique style. As soon as it was launched, it was deeply loved by young people at home and abroad, and it also made many overseas players interested in Chinese traditional opera.
"Her voice is so pure and peaceful. I like to listen to her sweet singing." "Chinese opera is music like gold."… The video has been viewed 7.22 million on YouTube.
"As a mass entertainment medium, it is difficult for games to carry the heavy accumulation of opera art over thousands of years," said the production team of Yuanshen. "But it is also very meaningful to let more people know traditional Chinese opera in a way that overseas players are willing to accept, and then to contact the true essence of opera culture."
"Continue to surprise users"
Behind the cultural appeal of the game is the continuous innovation of the research and development side. According to Liu Wei, president of miHoYo, the company that produced and distributed "Yuan Shen", "making works that can be loved by users from different regions and cultural backgrounds is itself full of challenges, and miHoYo’s approach is to keep up with market demand, continuously increase investment in technology and content, and continue to surprise users."
Disassembling the development process of "Yuan Shen", Liu Wei talked about that games as digital cultural products cannot be separated from the construction of an industrialization system. miHoYo has established a special research team within the company to undertake the responsibility of catching up with the industrialization level of international cutting-edge manufacturers and exploring new technologies. miHoYo has also established R & D centers in many countries and regions to attract global scientific research talents, build an industrialization pipeline, and improve product quality and production efficiency.
After long-term technical accumulation, "Yuan Shen" has made a breakthrough in client side technology, and pioneered the simultaneous launch of multiple platforms, which can be used on PS, iOS, Android, PC and other platforms to meet the usage habits of different game groups.
"Whether a game is successful or not, whether it is fun or not, and whether it can bring pleasure to players are the most direct criteria." Li Xuan, a game teacher at the Future Media Studio of the Central Academy of Fine Arts who has participated in the production of many games, believes that excellent gameplay design is an important prerequisite for a game to be "fun".
In terms of gameplay design, "Yuan Shen" transplanted the open-world characteristics of the computer and host to the mobile game, encouraging free exploration in the game world and greatly enhancing user stickiness.
Under the influence of factors such as the peak of domestic user growth and shrinking version numbers, going overseas has become an important source of growth for China’s game industry. Data show that the actual sales revenue of China’s self-developed games overseas market reached 18.013 billion US dollars last year, an increase of 16.59% year-on-year, of which mobile game revenue was 16.09 billion US dollars, an increase of 21.8% year-on-year.
"Going overseas is one of the hot topics in China’s game industry in recent years. The rapidly growing overseas market can bring many opportunities to China’s game industry. At the same time, the international market is relatively mature. Going overseas will force the domestic game industry to improve its independent research and development capabilities and improve product quality," Chen Yu said.
Chen Yu shared a story: PUBG MOBILE mobile game R & D team went overseas to participate in a campus competition. After entering the auditorium, the host introduced them as the developers of the game. The enthusiasm of the audience was quickly ignited, and the cheers went up and down. "Like a sports star entering the arena, I feel very excited." He said, "In the past, Chinese players played foreign games, but now many domestic manufacturers, including Photonics, have gradually gained recognition from global users. As practitioners, it is very fulfilling."
"And target a bigger market."
The group of players who invest more time and energy in games tends to be concentrated in the console and computer side, and foreign manufacturers have paid relatively little attention to mobile end gamers in the past few years. "The game needs of mobile end players with limited energy and more fragmented entertainment time have not been well met. Domestic game manufacturers have seized the opportunity and achieved breakthroughs in this part of the gamers first," Li Xuan said.
However, with the popularity of domestic mobile games overseas, more foreign manufacturers have begun to pay attention to mobile end games, and the market competition has become increasingly fierce. "It is not enough to only attract light players, but also to target a larger market and attract more heavy players," Li Xuan said.
Heavy gamers are known in the industry as core gamers, who usually have a "tricky taste" and have higher requirements for game quality. "It is the dream of many practitioners to get the recognition of core players and make a high-quality game. Almost every Chinese player and Chinese game producer is eager to see a high-quality masterpiece made in China," Li Xuan said.
"Overall, we still have a certain gap with the top R & D companies on the PC side and the host side. The improvement of R & D level cannot be achieved overnight, and it needs to be accumulated step by step." Chen Yu said, "The gap is gradually narrowing."
"The Dyson Ball Project," a domestic indie game released last year, is a rather "hard-core" sci-fi-themed business simulation game. Since the release plan was announced, many foreign users have been looking forward to it. This kind of game is not popular, but "The Dyson Ball Project" has proved itself to players around the world.
The game setting with the concept of physics, the realistic and elegant art style, and the abandonment of the game mode of "confrontation" that encourages players to actively explore… These characteristics have allowed the game to maintain a high praise rate of 97%, making it one of the most praised games on the Steam platform. Players from different cultural backgrounds did not hesitate to praise themselves, and left messages expecting the game to provide more language support and richer content gameplay.
He Wei, a professor at the School of Arts and Media at Beijing Normal University, believes that Chinese games have strong operating capabilities in overseas markets, while other links in the industry chain are relatively weak. Through the innovation and exploration of the profit model of mobile end game products, China’s game industry has achieved a curve in output value, but in other links of the game industry chain, such as software and hardware infrastructure, game research and development, distribution, channels, etc., it has not yet reached the leading level.
"This requires the upgrading of the game industry chain. In the past, our industry chain was still a relatively traditional production method similar to a manual workshop, but under the new global collaboration model, we need to set up different studios around the world to work together across types of work, countries and time zones to complete projects, which will help us continue to improve the team level." Chen Yu said.
Industry insiders point out that technological progress and cultural integration have brought the distance between global game enthusiasts closer, and also created more diverse demand. Chinese game makers must not only conduct in-depth research on overseas markets and gain timely insight into changes in target group preferences, but also be prepared to establish a global presence from the beginning of Product Research & Development, accumulate loyal users with stable product quality, and move towards the journey of upgrading from a single hit to a global IP.
