Digitally China Podcast: Hope and Despair in the World’s Largest Gaming Market

Digitally China is a bi-weekly podcast from RADII hosted by Tom Xiong and Eva Xiao, and produced by Jacob Loven. On each episode, the team will tackle a different timely tech-related topic, providing key insights on all you need to know about the fast-changing nature of innovation in China. Find previous episodes of Digitally China here and subscribe on iTunes here.

Gaming is one of the most profitable industries in China’s tech sector. It’s the cash cow powering the rise of Tencent, the multi-billion dollar firm behind WeChat.

It’s also an industry with some of the most notorious examples of copying, but also the most stringent rules — which Chinese game developers and gamers tirelessly find creative workarounds for.

China is the largest gaming market in the world by revenue, raking in almost 40 billion USD last year, despite a 9-month licensing freeze that prevented game developers from monetizing new games.

Related:

No Mahjong, No Blood: The Chinese Government Just Changed the Rules for Video Games

But as the Chinese government rolls out more rules to increase controls on an already tightly regulated market — banning blood, mahjong games, and more — what will happen to China’s vibrant gaming community, and how will tighter content restrictions impact the country’s game developers?

Topics covered in this episode

• Publication numbers and censorship

• Copycat products and Chinese game quality

• Creative freedom and the future of gaming in China

Guests

• Haohai and Li Motian, two hardcore gamers based in China

• Daniel Ahmad, senior analyst at market research and consultancy firm Niko Partners

• Wang Miaoyi, a Beijing-based independent game developer

Listen to the latest Digitally China episode below or find it (and previous episodes) on iTunes here.