Roblox to release in China, Monster Hunter banned, Detention on Netflix, PS5/Xbox China predictions, NetEase applauds Genshin, Hitman 3 to be set in Chongqing — China Games News Roundup #10
Featuring a blast from the past: The top ten games about China (that aren’t from China)
Hi team,
Sorry for skipping a week. I’ve been swamped with work and school. For those who are not aware, I’m also doing a master’s degree on the side in addition to my full-time job. And it’s finals week.
Truth is, I wasn’t gonna publish anything but the gnawing thought and a sense of guilt for skipping this issue kept me awake on many nights. So yeah, for my sanity’s sake, I’ve decided against my better judgment to write this one up. As now we have more than three weeks of news to go over, here is the structure for this newsletter.
Roblox on track for a China release
Roblox has secured a government license
But regulatory challenges aren’t over yet
Monster Hunter movie banned from China
Monster Hunter’s “Chi-knees” slur as explained by Leehom Wang
Tencent’s Monster Hunter curse
Taiwanese game Detention has been adapted by Netflix
Detention is out as a Netflix series after getting a movie with WB
Rehashing Devotion’s Xi Jinping insult
PS5/Xbox updates
Both consoles predicted to have a China release in 2020
A video story by me where I checked out Hong Kong’s reseller market
Genshin gets the nod from NetEase CEO
NetEase CEO’s endorsement
Updates on Genshin
Hitman 3 to be set in Chongqing
Hitman 3 to be released in Jan 20
The top ten games about China (that aren’t from China)
Newzoo’s updated forecast
The global gaming market will grow by 19.6% to $174.9 billion
China to reach an estimated revenue of US$44 billion, the world’s largest
Lilith Games teases a new PvP shooter
Farlight 84 is revealed
The emergence of gaming VPNs
How Chinese gamers circumvent the Great Firewall
Roblox on track for China release
It was frankly unexpected. There wasn’t much of a sign before as to when Roblox will be greenlighted in China. Roblox is already the hottest thing in gaming these days given it is looking to be the next big game company to go public after Unity.
Matthew from Bloomberg Intelligence has a bullish outlook for Roblox. “Tencent’s receipt of approval to publish the Chinese version of Roblox on December 2 could spur a big uplift to sales upon release which may come in 2H21, in our view… In a scenario where Roblox China achieves 10 million daily active users in its first year with average bookings per user in line with its global average, net bookings from China could eclipse US$500 million,” he said.
Here is a fantastic writeup on Roblox by Rita just a few weeks ago in which she describes what Roblox will likely run up against in China.
I’ve also shared a bit of my thoughts on Roblox in a previous issue here, so feel free to check that out.
Monster Hunter movie banned in China
For any video game movies wanting to make a splash internationally, China is their biggest hope. The best example is Warcraft. That movie, despite becoming a laughing stock in the rest of the world, sold gangbusters in China. And now because China remains one of few countries where life has resembled normalcy, movies need the China market.
But Monster Hunter doesn’t seem to have such luck. The movie was pulled from the theatres just a day after it was released. My colleague Linda wrote a piece on this over the weekend.
This speech singer Leehom Wang gave at Oxford is powerful in showing how “Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees” is a racist playground chant that is just hurtful.
It is worth noting that this is not the first time Capcom and its Chinese partner Tencent saw a Monster Hunter title blown up in its face in China. Dan from Niko has aptly nicknamed it the Monster Hunter Curse.
Detention is out on Netflix
The most well-known Taiwanese game studio today is probably Red Candle Games which has created two horror games Detention and Devotion, both of which centered on Taiwanese traditional cultural and superstitious practices in the 20th century. Here are the links to the streams we did in 2019 on Detention and Devotion, with my mouth agape half of the time.
Anyway, now after getting a movie with Warner Brothers last year, Detention is adapted by Netflix and the first two episodes are out.
As many of you may know, Red Candle Games is infamous in China thanks to Devotion, the follow-up on Detention. Devotion was all the rage in China for a couple of weeks after launch until someone found an easter egg which turned out to be an insult aimed at Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The game was subsequently removed, blocked, and banned everywhere and Red Candle Games has largely disappeared from the public eye until… Harvard decided to show it some sympathy.
PS5/Xbox updates
Dan from Niko has a prediction as to when Xbox Series X will be launched in China after the console got its 3A certification from the Chinese government. For more details, here is a story I wrote.
I tried to get Dan to tell me what his prediction for the PS5 is. But he said the forecast is behind the paywall on Niko’s website. But at the end he said, “We don’t expect the gap between Xbox and PS5 to be too significant in terms of launch date.”
Now this is a perfect transition into this video story that I made with the awesome Chris Chang on PS5 resale market in Hong Kong on PS5’s launch day. We got some really cool soundbites for this story. If you do end up watching this, don’t forget to check out the comment section. It’s hilarious.
Genshin gets the nod from NetEase CEO
The following story about how Ding Dei applauded Genshin’s decision to bypass Android app stores in China has gotten me the most traffic last month. Clearly, people are fed up with the ludicrous 50% commission imposed by these Chinese app stores.
I’ve written about in a previous issue about this before. But honestly, I did not expect Apple to concede to cut fees. At any rate, it looks like the battle is only starting.
Now let’s veer off tangent a bit to highlight some updates on Genshin. While Genshin’s second month is not as strong as its first, overall the game had literally made banks in its first two months. More specifically, it made US$245 million and US$148 million in October and November respectively, averaging US$6 million in earnings each day, according to Sensor Tower.
Perhaps more importantly, it became the first Chinese game to win both the Game of the Year awards from App Store and Google Play. Anyway, Chinese mobile games in general have been unstoppable.
Hitman 3 to set in Chongqing
Woot woot! The much-anticipated Hitman 3, slated for a release on Jan 20, will be in Chongqing!! The visual looks stunning 🤯🤯🤯
If that entertains you, here is a little blast from the past from Mr. Hiranand.
Newzoo’s updated report
Somehow I forgot to include Newzoo’s new quarterly update in the last roundup. But the number is actually even more staggering than we thought.
Tom Wijman said the global gaming market will grow 19.6% to US$174.9 billion this year. Newzoo’s latest report puts China as the world’s biggest gaming market with an estimated revenue of US$44 billion, followed by the US with US$41.3 billion.
Mobile games are projected to account for 49%, with an estimated revenue of US$86.3 billion.
Lilith Games teases a new PvP shooter
Genshin Impact has made miHoYo famous. But any Chinese video games analyst would tell you that Lilith Games is another upstart that is worth watching. Rise of Kingdoms and AFK Arena are two games that have met huge success worldwide. Anyway, here is the new game called Farlight 84 that Lilith Games had just teased.
Notice, this is an Unreal Engine game slated for a release on both PC and mobile. The reason why I think this may be important is that Lilith has traditionally strictly stuck with mobile. And Lilith has, by now, acquired a reputation for quality games. If this does turn out to be a PC game with broad appeal in the West, we may then have another Genshin Impact situation where a quality Chinese game seemingly comes out of nowhere but is in fact a much-anticipated title amongst insiders.
What’s more? I have previously created a video about Lilith Games’ CEO Wang Xinwen. Do check it out if you want to learn more about the company.
The emergence of gaming VPNs
Last but not least, s promised in the previous issue where I said that I would write a longer story on the surge in popularity of NetEase’ Game Booster, here, hot off the press, is a story about how Chinese gamers use gaming VPNs. Knock yourself out.
Thanks for reading!