China's revenue of Singleplayer/Standalone PC games in 2019 was RMB 640 million, up 341.1% YoY

As usual PC gaming continues to grow in the world's largest market, China. RMB 640 million converted to USD amounts to $92.169 million USD. Not sure if its accurate or not since last year iResearch estimated the Chinese premium game market was worth over 5 billion Yuan which is equval to $147 million USD.

Either way there was definitely some growth.

Here is Nikopartners report

• China is the largest and most important market for PC online games, accounting for more than half of PC online games revenue worldwide.
• China domestic PC online game revenue was $15.21 billion in 2018. Revenue is forecast to remain impressive, reaching $16 billion by 2023.
• There were 312.4 million PC online gamers in 2018 and 79.7 million of them spend money in games. The number of PC online gamers is projected to reach 354 million in 2023. (More than the population of the entire United States).
• Tencent and NetEase remained the Top 2 game publishers in China, and foreign developed games comprised about 60% of total revenue in the market.
• China’s 138,000 internet cafes are a very important part of Chinese online gaming, even more important for gamers engaged with esports.
• Esports is currently the most important long-term driver of growth for the PC online games market. Esports game revenue was $6.3 billion in 2018, up 11.1% YoY and accounting for 41.4% of total PC online games revenue. Esports game revenue is projected reach $9.5 billion in 2023, accounting for 59.4% of PC online games revenue.
• Despite a temporary game licensing freeze and the introduction of new regulations under a new regulator, the State Administration of Press and Publication (SAPP), Chinese gamers kept up their consumption of PC games.
• Game licensing resumed in December 2018. A clear regulatory process was outlined in April 2019, domestic and foreign games have been licensed, and the 12-month regulatory reform seems to have finished. It is a positive sign for all developers and publishers.

Netease has recently launched their own domestic store called Fever Game store that distributes premium PC games to compete with Tencent's WeGame. Their store launch titles are Deep Rock Galactic and TerraTech.

Netease is the second largest gaming company in China and in 2019 has invested in or partnered with developers/publishers such as Creative Assembly, Quantic Dreams, Bungie and others to bring their games over to China officially.

Total War: Three Kingdoms is the fastest selling Total War title with over 1 million copies sold in its first week. Creative Assembly greatly credited this to their Chinese playerbase that has been increasing with each new release.

As of June 2019 Overwatch in China sold over 10 million copies with an average selling price equivalent to $32 USD. When back in 2017 it was announced to have sold over 5 million copies in under a year of its China release.

Since Q1 2019 PC has surpassed PS4 as Ubisoft's most profitable platform. Ubisoft themselves have credited China to part of their PC growth and see it as an untapped market.

Capcom's COO in February 2019 stated the important growing value of the PC platform with the PC ration of their sales increasing ever year. Monster Hunter World was a huge title on PC in 2018 with it being the best selling Japanese game on Steam and having 1 million preorders in 2 weeks on WeGame.

Take Two CEO had stated back in November 2019 that when they have a console release they expect PC to make 40-50% of the revenue. China was the second most popular platform for GTA V on Steam and I believe they're number 1 now.

Nvidia at their GTC China 2019 conference stated they sold over 5 million gaming laptops in China.

According to the latest Steam survey simplified Chinese is the most popular language again.

Anyway the PC Client(online gaming) market in China which is significantly bigger actually stagnated. It is worth RMB 62 Billion which is $8.9 Billion in USD.

There is also some stuff with consoles

RMB 5.36 billion is $772 million USD. I wonder how much revenue is actually from software. About every other chart I see for actual console game market share in comparison to PC and Mobile has it shown as 1-5% or less. I wonder how well the Switch is doing in China.

RIP gaming. We will see more and more Pooh pandering BS from game publishers just so they can sell their shit in China.

Every company is pandering to China now, not just gaming companies.

And this is good because?

It's good for all gamers :)

Winner winner chicken dinner :P

If China keeps this up, there's no hope for PC gaming in the U.S. But anyways, it's always great news to here gamers are enjoying PC gaming as ever before.

We all gotta start somewhere, gotta go where the money's at right?

Yeah. Bunch of bitch-made big corps so desperately want that China money.

Yeah I don't blame capitalist companies for putting capitalism first and foremost.

I just hope Chinese gamers love FPS and RTS as much as I do, so I get more great games :)

Wow this is really good new for PC platform! Well done Chinese gamers :)

Oh boy, can't wait for more bizarre censorship in games based on ridiculous Chinese superstition-driven regulation

China's influence on gaming continues to rise, for good and ill. As a certain purple space warlord would say; "I am inevitable."

Really liking all these Chinese games popping up on Steam.

Keep them coming my economically superior friends.

Yup, and it's quite amazing really.

All in all, PC is easily first place here for software gaming revenue, hardware gaming revenue, and population by a significant margin. No other system comes close. Almost 2x than the 2nd place system (PS4). This is undeniable.

@tormentos can attest to this fact.

I think you guys are kind of blowing this out of proportion.

I for one was pleasantly surprised at what games the Chinese are enjoying: Overwatch, Total War: Three Kingdoms, and Deep Rock Galactic are all excellent, non-pandering games.

I think you folks are under the impression that companies are going to be pro-Chinese government when the fact is they simply don't need to be anti-Chinese government. That's like...every single game ever made except a few of the Command and Conquer games haha.

Everyone just calm down.

Any recommendations?

Also, do they all look like anime characters? That's a really big turnoff for me.

@NoodleFighter:

Tencent and NetEase...

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3021561/homeland-dream-chinese-gaming-giants-such-tencent-netease-unveil

Chinese gaming companies, including giants Tencent and NetEase, unveiled new titles at an industry meet that show off socialist values and patriotic themes amid stricter state censorship and a push to back Communist Party propaganda.

@mrbojangles25: Didn’t you know there is widespread hatred of anything Chinese.

Some people even prefer publishers to make less money or even go bankrupt than sell to the Chinese market.

It’s called Sinophobia.

@kadin_kai: Not even close. And it's an argument for Political Gamers.

@R4gn4r0k: Yeah, and between Star Wars and the MCU, it isn't exactly working for Disney.

We are headed to a Chicom NWO future. Soon they buy gaming just like Hollywood. Movies now dont even dare say anything bad about China. Instead people are brainwashed to hate america/being white lol. I gotta say their plan is really good.. even a blind person can see it... but i dont think they will win. Eventally there has to be war for freedom or maybe not with people being so weak now :(

My full support to the people of Hong Kong, they are truly awake.

@KillzoneSnake:

The same hollywood dicates on morality and ethics while they bow down to China.

I'm not Nordic "white" and I dislike anti-white rhetorics from the left "progressives". I have Nordic white in-law relatives.

As an immigrant, I migrated and selected western culture 1st.

I'm 1/4 Chinese and I dislike CCP.

Chinese gamers share the same taste as US and Japanese gamers. Steamspy has a chart showing how the top 50 games from both China and the USA mostly overlap each other. To be fair with their worry Ubisoft was trying turning all versions of Rainbow Six Siege into the Chinese version with its censorships which pissed people off. A lesser known more recent example was the game Devotion in early 2019 which was made by Taiwanese devs which not only made fun of Xi JingPing but associated some of the horror in the game with mainlanders and the PRC. Even though the game sold a million copies in less than a week and had critical reception from both gamers and reviewers the second Chinese gamers discovered the Xi JingPing Winnie The Pooh joke and associations of PRC with the horror in the game they got angry and review bombed it. Devotion got taken off of Steam and the publisher of Devotion had their license to trade in China taken away permanently even though they didn't know the game contained that content.

As far as recommendations, Gujian 3 which is one of the biggest AAA games in China recently got English translations back in November last year. Xuan Yuan Sword (The Gate Of The Firmament) belongs to one of the most popular PC RPG games in China. Bloody Spell is another one although it is in early access it is progressing along very nicely. Bladed Fury is a cool side scroller hack n slash. My Time At Portia is a more laid back RPG that did pretty well on Steam, most people don't know that it is Chinese. A couple of others well received on Steam and have English translations.

@mrbojangles25: They basically are (many) inspired from Japanese design, but with a Chinese flavor, specifically Wuxia/Wushu.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/994280/Gujian3/

Many still aren't translated.

A lot of capitalism hating scum ITT.

These companies want to make big bucks and Gina is the best way.

Chinese gamers share the same taste as U.S. gamers. This Steamspy chart although a bit old at this point shows it. It's impressive how Divinity Original Sin 2 was rank 38 on the Chinese top 50 list considering at the time it did not have Chinese language support and story/text heavy games such as that aren't easy to play without understanding what is going on.

Because that means more people are supporting PC games which will result in developers making more PC games, bigger and better PC games, better PC ports and PC even being the lead platform for multiplatform titles.

The amount of Japanese design inspiration in Chinese games is amazing. For example I recently learned that the mobile game Azur Lane is Chinese and not Japanese. With most other Chinese and Korean content that uses the anime artstyle it is pretty easy to tell that they aren't Japanese because you can always find something off with how they do it or leave traces of their cultural influence in designs but not with Azur Lane. With how popular the IP is in Japan with it also having its own anime I would have never suspected it being Chinese until someone pointed it out. They also hired some Japanese devs to make a standalone game for PS4 and PC.

@NoodleFighter: Wow, those Western and Chinese tastes are eerily similar.

I like the universal nature of video games. Good games really know no boundaries.

Never knew Divinity, a game from my small country, would end up that succesful in China.

Upcoming Chinese PC masterpiece.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1195290/Moncage/

Moncage gives me Gorogoa vibes.

Not if China dictates what the games should or should not be. :(

Plus - More money for PC gaming industry

Minus - Creative freedom stifled by CCP censorship