Free-to-play gaming may be a big challenge

"In the niche market we focus in, there are 5,000 people employed in the games industry in Chengdu. I'm not sure if we even have that many in the whole of the UK."

Eutechnyx has invested millions of pounds in its Chengdu business, he says, a lot of it going into training, including sending both countries' workers overseas to see and work alongside one another.

"We are a great believer in China's gaming market. At the moment we are doing graphical 3D modelling for games in China for the global market, but we want to target China's domestic market more in the future."

Eutechnyx plans to launch its Auto Club Revolution in China next year in partnership with the Chinese game publisher KongZhong.

KongZhong, listed on Nasdaq, is a leading game publisher in China well known for Guild Wars 2. The partnership means KongZhong can help Eutechnyx correctly position ACR in China, market it and take care of other logistics details to ensure Chinese consumers receive the right experience.

Once launched, ACR will become the first racing game in China to feature fully licensed real-world cars and tracks. Although China already has many racing games, these games do not use real cars, but Eutechnyx is keen to do business in China in the proper way.

ACR allows players to choose their own car for a race, the experience being very similar to real-life racing because of the game's graphics and sound.

To help Chinese gamers feel more connected to ACR, Eutechnyx has developed a Shanghai track that features surrounding images taken from Shanghai.

Eutechnyx announced the Shanghai track earlier this year to coincide with the announcement of its partnership with KongZhong, at ChinaJoy, an industry event.

The Shanghai track will be available to players worldwide when an upgraded version of ACR is released in future.

Nancy Zhang, marketing director of KongZhong, says it looks forward to ACR being launched in China.

"We have a huge user group of racing console games there, but there are no client racing games. We have never doubted that ACR will be highly popular in China, particularly given that the cars are licensed by the car firms."

Eutechnyx, founded in 1987, has recently set up another business, ZeroLight, which uses Eutechnyx's graphical 3D modeling and game development expertise and technology to fulfill other functions for commercial and retail customers.

Examples of ZeroLight's work include designing virtual car showrooms so the buyer of a car receives life-like experience and can customize and interact with a car on screen just as they can with the real vehicle. ZeroLight also works on projects for environment design and visualization that includes airline seat configuration design, interior design, architectural design and city planning, all of which can be seen on 4K UltraHD screens or in virtual reality headsets.

Last year, ZeroLight worked with Jaguar Land Rover to design a virtual showroom experience for a new model of the car.

The design allows users to point at a screen as if they are touching their car and making it perform functions.

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