Game Internationalization: Overcoming Cultural Barriers
By Ada Hendren - CEO ShareCreators
Regarding Chinese mobile games going into an overseas market, let’s first take a look at the numbers: 2021 Chinese Video Games Industry Report shows that the overseas sales of China’s self-developed games reached $18 billion, which is $2.563 billion more than last year, for a rise of 16.59%.
According to the same report, from 2018 to 2021, overseas sales revenue of mobile games increased by 88%. One prediction says that by 2024, the potential size of overseas Chinese video games will be $69 billion, which is nearly four times that of 2021. It’s obvious that mobile game internationalization has become increasingly important to the business performance of Chinese game enterprises.
A Brief History Of The Chinese Game Industry’s Internationalization
I see 2018 as a turning point for Chinese domestic games going overseas. Before that time, the number of domestic games being exported amounted to a small portion of the market. Small- and medium-sized producers mainly relied on the advantageous and successful business model of domestic mobile games and web-page games.
After 2018, due to the restrictions on licensing ISBN codes for games in China, domestic game producers began to look more seriously overseas. The past couple of years has brought about major changes due to increasing domestic competition and declining growth rates coinciding with stricter policies; the overseas market has once again become the focus of the mainstream game enterprises. We witnessed companies with stronger marketing abilities and better quality games emerge in droves.
An example I worked on, Rise of Kingdoms, developed by Lilith Games, successfully helped open up the European and American game market to China and became an example of the success of the games going overseas. In fact, “of the top 10 highest-grossing mobile games globally, four came from Chinese gaming companies,” which included Rise of Kingdoms at number three.
Targeted Markets By The Chinese Gaming Industry
Chinese game companies are mostly aiming at three kinds of overseas markets broken into loosely regional categories. The main targeted region is Japan and South Korea, two markets with strong cultural proximity to China. They are mature and include strong copyright awareness and good payment habits.
Another category is India, Southeast Asia, Russia and other emerging markets that have large population dividends and many potential opportunities but whose consumers have a lower willingness to pay.
The last market is the U.S., U.K., Germany and other European and American countries. They tend to have significant cultural differences, mature market development and good payment habits.
Tracking Chinese game internalization usually starts from the nearby market, Japan and South Korea, before launching in Europe and the United States. However, despite many similarities in a globalized culture, the phenomenon of certain inadaptabilities is still inevitable.
Challenges To Game Internationalization
At present, there is no doubt that the Chinese domestic mobile games industry is in an important dividend period, but it is also undeniable that the road to games going overseas is full of challenges. One of the biggest challenges is the huge differences between cultures.
Due to the cultural barriers, many games that were excited to go overseas have encountered serious inadaptability issues, could not successfully open overseas markets and eventually returned with nothing in hand. Therefore, finding ways to solve the problem of inadaptability is key for the domestic games in overseas markets to succeed.
Adaptive Localization And Other Solutions
At the Games Internationalization Marketing Summit during Game Developer’s Conference in 2019, I was invited to share my ideas, along with representatives from IGN, Sensor Tower and other well-known companies in the gaming industry. My speech analyzed the differences in art design between different markets and different user groups, particularly in terms of the problems of cultural barriers encountered by game makers going overseas.
I believe that a mature model of internationalization cannot be achieved without adaptive localization, mature distribution channels and high-quality products. In terms of game art, only through excellent localized art design that fits regional preferences can we get better conversion rates for games in overseas markets. Going to the basics, the most important thing is to understand who your target audience is, what they like and the core gameplay of your game. In this way, you can present your core gameplay in a way that your target audience wants to see.
AFK Arena, also by Lilith Games and another one my company worked on, is an example of a game featuring higher quality art, more sophisticated graphics as well as a more Western fantasy style than similar products. In other words, the game’s art design is more sticking to the global market, which I believe has directly contributed to AFK Arena’s high conversion rates since its launch.
Another example is the success of Knives out in the Japanese market. Japan has a strong intellectual property-based (IP) game market, and I see the key to Knives out’s success largely based on its interoperation with popular local IP, including well-known Japanese properties such as Attack on Titan and Neon Genesis Evangelion. They also invited Japanese singer Icao to sing the theme song “Never Stop.” Similar stories happened with Warpath, PUBG mobile and many others.
These examples convinced me that good data analysis of game art could bring real revenue growth. Third-party teams with excellent designers from various countries around the world who are familiar with local culture and have rich art experience are the key to helping solve potential inadaptability problems of Chinese domestic games in overseas markets.
A Growing Market
At present, Chinese domestic games are flourishing in overseas markets, and at this stage, they have made a breakthrough in places like Europe, America, Japan and Korea. However, for many of these mature markets, local game makers or global heads have been cultivating games there for many years, creating strong and competitive barriers. For a large number of game makers going overseas, a mature third-party team can be a powerful teammate to include, whether in terms of excellent localization design or improving cash conversion.
