China's developers winning the game

Whiteout Survival, a strategy game released by Century Games in February 2023, has been downloaded over 100 million times globally and consistently ranked among the top-selling games in more than 100 countries and regions. At the same time, the domestic version has ranked first on the WeChat mini-game best-seller list and remained in the top five on the iOS best-seller chart since its launch in April last year.

Chen Qi, chief executive officer of Century Games, says that the main reason this game is so successful both at home and abroad is because it embraced the trend of making strategy games more casual.

The rise of hyper-casual "mini-games" further underscores this agility. In 2024, China's mini-game sector revenue doubled to $5.58 billion, capitalizing on fragmented play times. Mushroom Wars, a casual title developed by Chinese game company 4399, grossed $378 million overseas. These games become addictive to mobile users — easy to pick up, but difficult to put down.

Success abroad demands more than linguistic tweaks. Tencent Games' Honor of Kings retooled characters and lore for Western audiences, while the mobile version of Call of Duty tailored events to regional festivals.

Li Shilin, Tencent's localization expert, says the biggest challenge for Chinese companies going global is truly understanding and integrating into local cultures to solve localization issues. While globalization is a major trend, the success of each game often hinges on how well they handle the specific details and challenges of localization, he adds.

Despite progress, pitfalls loom. Cultural misreadings persist: When overseas players saw Black Myth: Wukong's protagonist don a golden headband, many mistook it for a "coronation" rather than a curse — a stark reminder of context gaps.

Technological gaps also linger. While China's mobile prowess is unmatched, console gaming remains nascent, accounting for just 4.59 percent of domestic revenue.

The $300 million budget of Black Myth: Wukong — a rarity in China — highlights the uphill battle to rival Western AAA titans.

Ao Ran, executive vice-president of the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association, highlights that China's gaming industry must shift from merely "going abroad" to achieving high-quality "globalization".

Bao Leiping, a professor and deputy director of the Institute of Sociology with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, says that in the future, through continuous innovation and cultural integration, domestic games will enrich global players' experiences and showcase Chinese culture's diversity and creativity, promoting international cultural exchanges.

Additionally, they should delve deeper into traditional culture beyond superficial elements to explore profound cultural and spiritual values, she adds.