Overseas Roundtable I How can Chinese independent game developers succeed overseas? _Market_Global_Player

Armed with this information, you can plan ahead and consider whether the game needs to be ported to a different platform, or to add features for players in different regions to experience.

For Chinese indie gamers, there are many benefits to broadening your horizons. It can help you have a deeper understanding of your game, discover new possibilities, and develop potential. Most importantly, it allows developers to look at their teams and games from a fresh perspective and make more informed decisions during development and release.

Q: Is there a conflict between making games based on Chinese culture and making games based on the global market? Is there a way to have both?

Hazel：I don’t think there is absolute friction or conflict in the gaming industry. The global market has always been very tolerant of different types of games. I believe that great indie games do well not because they are based on a particular culture or decided to go global in the first place, but because these games are able to communicate with players in unique ways. This is achieved through gameplay, story or game graphics.

There are also many excellent indie games in China. They were not born for the global market. They didn’t even have English subtitles at the beginning, but they became popular all over the world, making overseas players wait for the localized English version. Some overseas indie games are mostly not designed for Chinese players, but they are also very successful among Chinese players.

Maybe there are development teams targeting both domestic and overseas, but this is not as simple as it seems, and there are some negative effects. Most indie game development teams are very small, and it is difficult to juggle two aspects due to insufficient staff. If you forcibly cover everything, it is easy to deviate from the original planned direction.

You can first focus on Chinese culture to develop games, and then add features to meet the needs of global players. Or vice versa is also possible.

Q: In recent years, there have been many outstanding independent game works in the domestic and overseas divisions of the GWB competition. However, relatively few games can be loved by players at home and abroad at the same time. What do indie games that are truly successful on a global scale have in common?

Overlooking:Regarding the commonalities of indie games that have been successful globally, I think there are three main ones.

The first is that of course it has to be a good game in the traditional sense, above release time and any other factors. I feel that games today should have elements of both “new” and “unique” in addition to just being a “good game”. It takes a lot of work to stand out in today’s chaos, both from the perspective of reinventing existing game categories and from the perspective of categories that are about to explode.

The second key point is not to take things for granted. Making a game for a different culture is like making a game for non-players. Those who are not familiar with the game, they will see the things we know from a different angle. For example, in our opinion, a lot of things like user interface design and general messaging and so on, we take it for granted, because these are not new in the field of games. In the same way, we live in our own culture, and we don’t think about many things carefully, so we need to take the initiative to avoid taking ourselves too far for granted. We need to estimate the amount of information players can receive and process.

In the end, I think it’s important that these indie games that are successful globally are usually successful locally as well. I know it’s a bit redundant to say this, but these games are good local games before they become successful overseas games, aren’t they? Usually developers know this, it’s easy to lose ourselves when developing games and want to please everyone. So we must keep in mind that we must do what we are good at first, and then continue to develop on this basis.

Jarvis：I agree with the three points made by Gao Kan, and I also want to add two points. We often talk about successful internationalization and the saturation of the Chinese market, but in fact the current situation in the West is similar. There are tons of games being released every week, and so are the number of gamers (think platforms like Steam). So we now have an extremely large audience, but also a lot of competitors. Therefore, the quality of the game is the key.

As far as I’m concerned, to judge which indie game has the best chance of going international, I mainly look at two aspects.

One is roughly similar to Gaoguan’s point of view, but with a slight difference, that is, this game needs to be innovative in terms of visuals or gameplay, and it must be different from other games. It could be the introduction of a new game loop, or it could be combining different game types in a whole new way. There has to be a balance between being original and familiar to the player. If innovation goes too far, it can also cause problems. A good example is “Human Fallout” released by Curve Games, which is played by people all over the world, including Chinese players. It achieves the above mentioned points well from all angles, combining the superb technology of skeletal mapping into an innovative game style, that is, a multi-player escape room game. To this day no game has come close to it, so it still holds a unique place. I think that’s the key to its success.

The game “Humanity Fell”

Second, it can be more strategic. Reaching unserved users has a chance of success. Focus on the genres and games that people want. “Times at Portia”, for example, almost develops, innovates, and transforms elements we’ve seen in Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon. If you can find those games that people really like, and then make some innovations on the basis, for example, the 3D technology of “Times at Portia” takes it to the next level. Doing so will satisfy players who are desperate for more content.

Q: Which Chinese indie game impressed you the most? Or which one do you look forward to the most?

Jarvis：The games that impress me the most are the ones that are truly innovative. I like TOEIC’s “Gun Rebirth” very much. This game combines two different genres, combining first-person design games with Roguelike gameplay, and also adding game progression settings. These are all familiar to people. Players have played Roguelike, played shooting games, and played games with progression settings. But this game combines these elements in a unique way, and it’s an excellent, successful game.

Another example, still “Times at Portia”. It also innovates and develops on the basis of some old elements. The two studios have very different styles, but are equally good.

Overlooking:I very much agree with Jarvis’ evaluation of the few games just now, and at the same time, I also think of “Mysterious Case” released by Zhang Zhechuan last year. The game is creative, and in line with what Jarvis said, it feels like a really good balance of familiarity and innovation. “The Land of the Wind” is also a good example, the graphics are well done, and the overall game has a sense of fantasy atmosphere. At the same time, I also highly recommend “Perfect Day”. It’s kind of like a nostalgic throwback to 90s China. Everything I’ve seen in this game so far is like a giant bottle of nostalgia, and I like games with a sense of age like this because it’s relatively rare.

Game “Perfect Day”

Hazel：A Perfect Day is also in my game library. At the same time, I would also like to recommend “Warm Snow”, which is a roguelike action game set in the background of ancient Chinese dark fantasy. The combat system allows you to freely customize your own character for combat, giving you the motivation to build your own fighting style. . It’s not a perfect roguelike, but it has enough elements to keep me playing for hours on end. Another game that impressed me is called “Dream in a Cage”, which is an ingenious puzzle game in which the player rotates a cube to find a corresponding pattern to connect different scenes. And these seemingly unrelated patterns will eventually become pieces of a puzzle, piecing together a larger underlying story. I am impressed by the designer’s imagination and ingenuity.

Wu Zifei:I have two games to share. One, Project Dyson Sphere, developed by my friend, is a very good simulation game that will keep you from playing for hours on end. Another game, Taiwu Picture Scroll, inspired the Chinese indie game industry at the time. Many gamers realized at the time that indie games were possible. If a school teacher can make that game in three years and be very successful, so can we. After that, many people started making indie games in China.

Q: What are the differences between Chinese players and overseas players in terms of game preferences?

Hazel：In terms of preferred game genres, I haven’t seen any noticeable difference between Chinese players and players in other parts of the world. Devolver has released more than 90 games, and from our backend data, the preferences for each game are similar in China and abroad. Our games like Into the Dungeon, Samurai Zero, and Law of Talos have done very well in China, just as they have done in other countries.

However, we did find that Chinese players showed some preferences or habits more clearly than players from Western countries. Games with Chinese cultural elements as the theme will indeed attract more attention from Chinese players. Video games based on Chinese mythology have been around for a while, and games that describe modern Chinese reality or describe the subculture of a particular group of people, games inspired by Chinese literature, movies or TV series, or anything else we feel familiar can help create a sense of familiarity. a more immersive atmosphere. Chinese players consider games more comprehensively when they choose games, and expect games to meet their needs in all aspects. With more and more games, Chinese players are no longer game collectors, they are becoming more cautious and demanding.

Chinese players often hope that the game has high-quality graphics, beautiful music, exciting plots, and interesting gameplay. They also want to play longer and more replayable, so they feel they’re getting their money’s worth.

For Western players, if the game is not satisfactory in every way, but stands out in some respects, they may still find the game worthwhile and ignore the game’s flaws (if those flaws are important to the game The overall impact is not significant).

I don’t think developers should care too much about these differences. If these differences hinder their creation, a feasible way is to add more features that match the habits of players in different regions, thereby expanding the audience base and improving your creation. But overly catering to every need can jeopardize creativity and originality, the last thing indie developers want.

Wu Zifei:Regarding the game preferences of Chinese players and overseas players, I think one of the style differences is that Chinese players probably prefer anime characters, especially anime girl characters. For mobile games, anime is the more popular style in mobile games. That’s one of the differences I feel.

As far as character design is concerned, there will be supporting characters such as bearded men in the Western market, while Chinese players prefer feminine, especially feminine male characters. Especially a character like Sephiroth (a character from Final Fantasy). Sephiroth would be more popular in China than in the West, and probably throughout East Asia.

Sephiroth

In terms of culture and story, we found that Chinese players are more keen to have a more positive experience in the game.

We tried to end a character in Time at Portia, and our director did. However, many Chinese players were very disappointed with our decision, and we had to go back and modify it so that the player could choose to let her live.

The reason why players react differently is that Chinese players are more emotional. Most Western players are more calm, they understand that death and grief are part of life, but Chinese players think that this is a simulation game, and the promotion point is decompression, so why do you want to end such a role? Therefore, the reactions of Chinese and foreign players are different. Developers should be aware of this difference.

Q: What China-related topics or content do you think are particularly attractive to overseas players and developers?

Jarvis: This question is difficult to answer, especially for me. I have always been fascinated by Chinese culture and history.

I studied in Beijing for a year, so my personal views are very different from others. I think we’re actually still trying to understand which elements of Chinese culture resonate in the West and globally. I think the Western perception of Chinese culture is a bit inconsistent, Chinese culture is not really at the forefront of media or music or movies or games.

In fact, games have played a greater role in promoting Chinese culture than these mediums. I’ve seen a lot, I can say that most Chinese games are released on Steam. We’re starting to see games with a strong Chinese culture really take off, and of course the most important reason is that they’re very exciting games in themselves. Another reason is that people are also becoming more accustomed to Chinese culture and discovering its charm. Chinese developers should continue to create games they love, especially games related to Chinese culture, and I think video games are one of the mediums that really pushes forward.

Back to the question of what constitutes a successful game. People are looking for real stories, real worlds, real characters, and we have to take advantage of that. It’s likely to spawn some exciting projects, we’ll need to see more and think, and the market will show something that really resonates with players.

Q: From a Western player’s perspective, what specific game genres or topics related to Chinese culture do you like?

Jarvis：I like themes like cultivators, history or war. There are many elements of magic or fantasy in Chinese culture. If I were a Chinese developer, I would definitely be inclined to mine these elements. For example, the world built in “Black Myth: Wukong” is very attractive.

But then again, I don’t think it’s necessary to lock down these details yet. The point is to come up with the game concept first, and then preferably not stray from any particular topic.

Overlooking:I think over the next decade or so we’re going to see rapid changes as people become more familiar with many topics.

Sometimes people don’t know what they want until they come across something that interests them. So I think we’re going to see that shift. In addition to that, I also think that people will like the theme of monsters, such as monsters from folklore, monsters that are unique in each culture. There is always a group of people who are super interested in this stuff.

But I also think it’s a dangerous area, mainly because of the differences in how people know about IP like this. Chinese players have been exposed to these IPs since childhood and are familiar with their concepts, stories and characters. And Western players don’t know much about it, and if we’re going to make a global game like that, we have to cater to both people who are super familiar with it and people who are completely unfamiliar with it, and it’s hard not to cross the line.

So I think a good springboard at the moment is to dig into other things in mythology and legends, and according to this world construction idea, this can help developers not fall into the kind of trap mentioned above.

Q: Why is the Three Kingdoms not mentioned under this topic, is it because it is not very popular among Western players?

Overlooking:I’m not sure, but this is a good question. I think actually Three Kingdoms may be an IP that Western audiences are more familiar with. This may be thanks to a strategy game – “Total War: Three Kingdoms”. This IP has developed to the next stage and has become familiar to Western players, although players have not yet fully understood the culture.

Game “Total War: Three Kingdoms”

It also reminds me that when we discussed the first question, we said that Chinese private developers should develop and consider international elements. Because everyone has seen the positive effects on the studio level, but I think it’s definitely something to encourage from a cultural standpoint. Because as Jarvis said, games are indeed one of the main mediums for promoting culture. Culturally, there is currently a misunderstanding between the East and the West. If more games can be exported overseas, this misunderstanding can be significantly reduced.

When I chatted with overseas friends about “The Legend of Sword and Fairy” (a domestic RPG that grew up with me), everyone in China was familiar with it, but I rarely heard of it overseas. Although its quality was comparable to the JRPGs that were popular overseas at the time, the only difference was that those popular overseas games were localized and released overseas. So I also very much hope to see the rise of the next generation of games, connecting players around the world through the above methods.

Q: What do Chinese developers need to consider when setting up and developing games in order to successfully release them in overseas markets?

Wu Zifei:I think this question is for newcomers and for those who are just starting out. We often tell new planners that our games are designed for a global audience, not just a Chinese audience. Lower the barriers to entry so they can better understand your culture and the game you’re designing. For example, when eating hot pot, local people in Chongqing will eat pig brain flower, but you will definitely not give brain flower as the first dish to western guests.

We will first give the guests beer, or something, let the guests into the atmosphere of eating hot pot, and then start to eat other dishes, until we present the pig brain flower. There needs to be a guided process until the other side can accept it. Instead of slamming what we want to present on the guests’ plates as soon as we come up.

I think one of the most important points is that you also need to learn other people’s culture, and find an entry point in the other’s cultural context and a place that resonates with your own culture, so that they can understand what you want to express. For example, respect for parents, love, hate, friendship, etc., these are universal values. These are the points that we tell the planning to cut in. When we are designing, we must ensure that the framework behind it is understandable by everyone, rather than doing the opposite.

For another example, our concept of the Five Elements is difficult to explain outside the context of Chinese culture. There are metal, wood, water, fire, and earth in the five elements. The audience may wonder, what is the element of wood? Why is wood an element? To explain this clearly, one needs to take a step back and explain one of our theories about the energy composition of the world, and then go deeper. So everyone will understand.

This is an idea of ​​how we design games. I think other game developers also need to find a carrier that can carry their own creativity and can be understood by others.

Q: What do you think are the most cost-effective methods for overseas promotion and distribution of Chinese independent games? What are the things to look out for in terms of price?

Hazel：I think it is very important to have the support of local partners. Whether with local publishers or overseas PR firms, the information and resources they can provide may be unexpected. Especially when it is first released overseas, you may be frustrated in pitching your game to the media and influencers, PR firms and their cross-cultural communication skills can be of great help.

Discord

Having a local partner is an advantage, and working with a local publisher can greatly reduce the burden. The reason why we say this is not because we do publishing ourselves, but because publishers can also complete localization, testing, and porting work in addition to funding. Publishers typically have higher marketing budgets, wider distribution channels, and more reliable legal support.

For small development teams, specific qualifications and publisher contracts are required to publish games that are compatible with mainstream console companies, such as Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. Meeting some of the requirements in these contracts can be tiring at times, so it would be beneficial if the publisher partner could publish the game under their name. Publishing a game can be a huge amount of work, and without a partner or a local partner it’s easy to stray and not achieve the desired results.

Once a game is released, it’s really just the beginning. The development team is always on call to do some urgent fixes and other support. It’s often seen that developers are busier after a game’s release than before it was released. So publishing and development are very different businesses and require different skill sets. Let professional people do professional things, instead of doing everything hands-on at all times.

As for pricing, it must be based on the overall quality of the game and leave room for discounts, as these are the biggest selling points. Market research is more important, to see what the price of similar games is and to find a balance between your ideal price and the market’s expected price for this type of game, in the final analysis is to do market analysis.

Q: In the marketing promotion, what is the proportion of the budget of talent promotion?

Hazel：I think it will be different for different games. Some games are very suitable for live broadcast, but some games may be plot-oriented, and the anchor may spoil the game content to the players, so the sales will be bleak. So it depends on the genre of the game. For example, “Jelly Bean Man” and “Humanity Failed” are very suitable for live broadcast, and can attract a large number of audiences. At the same time, players will also want to play by themselves. But for a narrative game or a game with a rich story, if the anchor makes a spoiler in front of the audience, they may not want to buy the game again.

Perhaps for “Jelly Bean Man” and “Human Fallout”, the budget for talent promotion can exceed 50% or even higher.

The highly-played “Jelly Bean Man” video of the UP master Xiaoyao Sanren at Station B

Jarvis：Probably I’m not the best person to answer this question. I do strategy, not much promotion. But I know that for this type of game, it can be said that 50% of most of the market budget is spent on talent. If you publish a game that revolves around multiplayer, as I said before, players will really enjoy watching the streamer play, and then play it themselves. You get two-way feedback from streamers and players, so a 50% investment is reasonable.

Q: How do you consider cost-effectiveness from a developer’s perspective? For an independent development team, what is the most cost-effective way to manage overseas promotion?

Wu Zifei:If it’s a small team, work with a publisher. This instantly solves most of the problems faced. Of course, your profit will be less, but your income will be more secure, and it will also help the stability of the team.

In addition, for small development teams, it is necessary to be good at operating their own player groups. Most of the time, publishers only do marketing and one-time pre-streaming. After that, their own player community still needs to manage it by themselves. This is actually a very important marketing strategy. When releasing the next game, we can consider managing our player community well so that a positive cycle can be formed.

Especially for the development team in China, they may not pay much attention to community management. Just look at the comment sections for Chinese games on Steam and Discord. Most of the players were talking, and the development team didn’t respond at all. That said, the development team didn’t run its own community, which was a huge mistake. Community management is a must. You must participate in the player community and continue to interact with players. Once the positive loop is formed, players will look forward to your next game because they will follow your development. So time has to be invested in this.

Thinking back now, when we made our first game 10 years ago, I did most of the marketing myself. I spent 60% of my time developing and 40% interacting with the community, which really helped me a lot.

Q: Some small development teams in China may not be very realistic to interact with their players due to language or time difference. So is the most efficient way to operate a community by partnering with a third party? Or is the best way to communicate directly with the player even if there is a language barrier?

Wu Zifei:It’s still ideal for your own team to communicate with players. It doesn’t have to be live, you can use Reddit and Discord, or sources like TIGSource to post directly and wait for feedback. You can use Google Translate, it doesn’t have to be precise, as long as people feel genuine in the way you give feedback and respond to player feedback, I think that’s enough. This is two-way communication, not one-sided propaganda.

Q: Are there any pitfalls that need to be avoided when developing games for overseas players?

Overlooking:When it comes to avoiding pitfalls, I think one of them is about the way information is presented.

When I was in the country before going to Canada, I would browse the web. At that time, the Internet was on the rise, and there were websites like Sohu, whose homepage was densely populated with various links. But this doesn’t happen on websites or interfaces in Western countries. I think it might have something to do with the way of life in China.

A lot of times you come out of a building as if everything is so busy around you, there is something going on around every corner, so everyone is used to juggling a lot of information at the same time. But I think there is a situation of information overload.

This is also reflected in the titles of some works. We know that there is a movie called “Ghost” in English, and the Chinese translation is “The Love of Human Ghosts”. This is a poetic description of the unrequited love between people, which shows a preference for information processing that is different from the West.

In the Western design concept, the surface information is relatively concise, but in China, the surface information is more complicated, and it has a selling point in China.

However, when releasing overseas, avoid stepping on this pit.

The success of Apple’s mobile phone in China is evidenced by the fact that people in China are accepting the simplicity of the surface and the complexity of the interior. But if this set of logic is reversed, I don’t think the West can accept the superficially complex presentation. So if overseas distribution is one of your goals, consider hiding the complexity.

Jarvis：When it comes to selling games in the West, one thing Chinese development teams have not done enough is the localization of game assets.

Platforms like Steam are very suitable for global players, and we can design various resources for the game. The resources I am referring to here are such as logos, banners, names, etc., which must be localized for different customers and call different resources.

For example, when a game is released in the UK, one of the most disappointing situations is that players see that the game is all in Chinese. They will naturally think that this is not a game developed for them, because it almost means that players have to learn Chinese and understand Chinese characters in order to play this game.

I want to repeat the point I made earlier, especially for new development teams in China, if you want to release a game for the first time, it is a very good choice to cooperate with a publisher. China’s independent development team has always been strong, and most independent game publishers also see it. Most independent game publishers have Asian business teams and Chinese teams. Everyone is also very happy to cooperate with the Chinese team and wants to achieve such cooperation.Return to Sohu, see more