China

China
Location of China (shown in dark green). Uncontrolled regions are shaded light green.
The National Flag of the People's Republic of China
Basic Information
Full Name	People's Republic of China
Type	Nation
Bibliographical Information
Capital	Beijing
FIFA Code	CHN
IOC Code	CHN
Video gaming in China in video gaming

China (officially the People's Republic of China, 中华人民共和国) is a country in Asia. Its capital is Beijing and the country is bordered by North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. China claims control over Taiwan (usually represented as Chinese Taipei in video games that are officially sanctioned for release in China itself), and exercises effective control over both Hong Kong and Macau.

Video gaming in China

China is the largest video market in the world, owing largely to its population size, which, at just under 1.4 billion, is larger than any other country. An estimated 619.5 million people in China play video games, almost twice the population of the United States, and Chinese gamers were expected to spend 37.9 billion USD in gaming. These games are mostly mobile games though. 6 of top 50 video game companies are based in China.

The country's government takes an active role in video game censorship, and this invariably leads to video games never seeing official and/or localized releases; for the ones that are released, development and publishing time-scales are often vastly increased. Home gaming consoles were banned in China from June 2000 to 2013, in an attempt to stop the corrupting influence of video games.

China has had a big problem with software piracy. Unlike other countries which became accustomed to buying premium games with rising standard of living, Chinese publishers focused on free-to-play games with advanced pay-to-win strategies. The market is relatively isolated, filled with generic copycat freemium games lacking creative ambition. Foreign companies often make free-to-play variations of their popular franchises available only in China, they can operate just in collaboration with a Chinese company. This makes Chinese production largely uninteresting for players abroad. The situation is beginning to change and there are some exceptions in recent times, e.g. Genshin Impact (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild clone), Naraka: Bladepoint or F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch. Black Myth: Wukong released in August 2024 is described as the first Chinese AAA title.

Games banned in China

• Animal Crossing: New Horizons
• Battlefield 4
• Command & Conquer: Generals
• Devotion
• Grand Theft Auto series
• Hearts of Iron
• I.G.I.-2: Covert Strike
• Plague Inc. Evolved
• Roblox

External Links

• China on Wikipedia
• Games from China and Taiwan curator on Steam
• Chinese fantasy, Wuxia, Xianxia games curator on Steam