Indie game Chinese developers at ChinaJoy2023

ChinaJoy can be said to be an exhibition mainly for major game-related companies.

ChinaJoy is China’s largest game exhibition, and one of its roles is to bring together major domestic and foreign game operators to improve the international standing of the Chinese game market. Now in its 20th year, ChinaJoy has really done its job.

Then, aren’t small and medium-sized so-called indie game companies exhibiting at ChinaJoy?
In fact, at this year’s ChinaJoy 2023, indie games were exhibited in part of the BtoB venue.

In this article, I would like to delve a little deeper into the situation of indie game developers in the Chinese game market, based on history.

In the past, indie games were attracting attention in China as in Japan, and many indie game developers were born. This became noticeable around 2015 and continued until around 2018, a little before the corona disaster.

During this period, investment in indie game companies was active, and not only major game companies but also companies in other industries were actively investing in indie game developers.

Not only Chinese businesses but also Japanese developers are eligible for investment, and it was often said that they would like us to introduce excellent Japanese indie game developers. It was also around this time that many Japanese smartphone casual games were being developed in China, and there was also a move to attract development companies to China.

Numerous indie games have been successful in the Chinese game market, and the recognition that small-scale, high-quality indie games have value has permeated the Chinese game market. There was also a growing interest in indie games.

But gradually the wind starts blowing. The atmosphere will change due to the tightening of regulations on Internet use by the Chinese government, which has become difficult since around 2019.

At that time, the momentum for privacy protection in advertising was gaining momentum worldwide, and it was also a time when the profitability of advertising within smartphone apps was beginning to decline. China also had its advertising system, but even so, the impact was unavoidable, and the profitability of free smartphone app games declined.

At that point, the corona crisis began, and worldwide demand for games increased due to demand for staying at home, and smartphone advertising profitability temporarily recovered, but in China, the upward trend was limited, I heard that a small indie game company has ended development and dissolved.

Now, how are indie game developers doing in China for the first time in four years after the corona disaster? It was the indie corner of ChinaJoy2023 where I thought.

Unfortunately, there was a language problem, and communication on the spot was limited, but it turned out that a certain number of developers continued to develop games as usual during the corona crisis.

However, just like in Japan and other countries, most people gave up on smartphone app games and developed games for the PC game platform “Steam”. Steam is a very popular platform for Chinese gamers, although you’ll need to access it through a VPN in China, so it’s a natural transition.

One thing that bothered me personally was that ChinaJoy’s indie game corner was for B2B, not B2C.

There are almost no general users at BtoB venues, and inevitably the number of people who can try out is quite limited. It may have been meant to find a publisher, but I felt that it would be better to create a corner at the BtoC venue if possible.

The fact that ChinaJoy’s BtoC venue is basically for large companies may also have had an effect.

But the fact that indie games weren’t neglected and had a corner felt very good. It is expected that the management side had a hard time setting up this corner.

What made me very happy was that people involved in Chinese indie games and game fans were also quite interested in the Japanese indie game scene. At the afterparty that I attended after being invited by an acquaintance, I was asked many questions about the state of Japanese indie games and their main sources of income. BitSummit also seemed to know a lot about new Japanese indie game events like Tokyo Game Dungeon.

In Japan, information about Chinese indie game events is almost non-existent, but the Chinese side has done a lot of research on Japan, and I was very surprised by their ability to gather information.

In China, there are many regulations and rules regarding games and internet usage, and it is a very difficult situation for small indie game operators. Despite this, I am very happy to see him still active.

One of the challenges for Chinese indie game developers is that they want to enter the overseas market, but lack the financial resources and know-how to do so, just like in Japan.

Due to the corona crisis, exchanges between Chinese domestic and overseas game operators are finally resuming. The possibility of international expansion will also increase. I hope that this trend will be a chance for Chinese indie game operators to emerge.