Chinese-made video games appeal to international players

Chen Di, head of overseas business at Longtu Games says the West is the new "gold mine" for Chinese developers. Chen says that despite the growth in the Chinese industry, competition has gotten very steep. According to a list compiled by Tencent's QQ games news portal, the top 10 online games in China are all games that have been around for at least four years.

"In order to survive in this environment, Chinese developers quickly find their way to the markets outside of China," Chen says. "Of course, English speaking countries have high potential for this business, the people there are highly educated and able to pay (for services)."

Chen's company has not yet moved outside of China, however, he says that their new game, an online first person shooter, is aimed at a global audience. Chen says people in the West already have some exposure to Chinese culture, from Bruce Lee and Chinese food to Kung Fu Panda.

David Lakritz, CEO of Language Automation Inc, a game localization and translation company, says Western gamers are definitely ready for Chinese games.

"Broadly speaking, there is nothing fundamentally different about a Western audience that makes it unreceptive to Chinese culture," Lakritz says. "On the contrary, there have been many examples in other media of Chinese culture being well received by Western audiences. For example, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Jet Li and Jackie Chan films, etc."

Lakritz says the reason there have not been any video games included in the list of media already accepted in Western culture is the lack of quality localization of Chinese games.