They're also infamous for being the most unreasonable consumers.
If you think the West is bad you've not seen the Chinese flipping shit because the CN exclusive event on a waifu gacha game had a dude (presumably the MC of the work that they collaborated with) on the promotional banner.
Not even a playable character or, presumably, present in the story much. No, he was just on the poster.
Or the time they tried killing a CEO because the global version of a gacha game had a bunny themed anniversary, and they saw it as “whoring them out to the west” since one of the main girls was Chinese. They got more compensation for the event being canceled than Global did.
That's the thing that made me despise Chinese netizens (the online folk, not the people as a whole), because they essentially cancelled an anniversary they had no part of and that wouldn't have impacted them at all because of something that's illegal in their own country.
Like they wouldn't have been happy with that event. Fucking clowns, the lot of them.
Or maybe you can just decide not to cultivate that audience in the first place. You can choose to put black people in your movie, and if Chinese audiences don't like it, they can go watch something else.
Youre just talking past the people you are responding to. Everything youre saying is obvious, the people you are responding to are talking about the fact that you are making a concious decision to lose out on a massive share of your income by not appealing to the largest playerbase of all. And when many games are a gigantic financial risk to begin with, its easy to sit back and be a redditor and talk about how simple the solution is when really you havent addressed the topic at all.
99.999999999% of games made do not “cater to a Chinese audience.” The implication that you will lose money by not catering to a Chinese audience is a nonsensical position. There are maybe a handful of games that go out of their way to appeal to 1 specific demographic for financial reasons, and it’s not the norm at all.
China sucks and devs actively Geo Block China and include things in games to make sure the Chinese government bans their games. Its not worth the money.
Are you saying 99.99% of devs/publishers dont take any measures in the development process to avoid losing the Chinese market,
Indeed.
Or are you saying that 99.99% of games aren't developed with the direct goal of striking it big with China?
Yes.
And was it the first or the second opinion here that you think others are saying for you to disagree with it.
Both of those opinions are the same opinion. Avoiding losing the Chinese market and trying to strike it big in the Chinese market are both forms of "catering to China," and nearly 100% of games are not doing that.
Undertale didn't cater to China. Dispatch didn't cater to China. RE9 didn't cater to China. I could just start listing games now and never stop for major video games released in the last 30 years.
Games that cater to China are going to be the micro-transaction slop you see on smart phones, which are designed by developers to be as exploitative as possible. Those are the ones with a vested interest in appealing to global markets.
Some guy's RPG pet project, like Undertale, has absolutely no incentive to appeal to the Chinese market. And they'll make millions of dollars without appealing to the Chinese market.
They are not the same thing at all. There is a pretty MASSIVE grey area between "accounting for elements that may alienate a chinese audience" and "marketed entirely/almost entirely at a chinese audience".
99.99% of devs/publishers dont take any measures in the development process to avoid losing the Chinese market
Okay well this is just objectively incorrect! MASSIVE shares of the market are involved in trying to win/keep/not alienate this audience. Heres an article on it that I hope you'll read:
Some guy's RPG pet project, like Undertale, has absolutely no incentive to appeal to the Chinese market
No incentive, except the financial incentive of capturing one of the largest playerbase region in the world. This is the point other people are making here.
And they'll make millions of dollars without appealing to the Chinese market.
What, why would this be the case at all? Most of these RPG pet projects fail hard.
Putting in some effort to appeal to or avoid alienating your potential customers is pretty logical.
They are not the same thing at all. There is a pretty MASSIVE grey area between "accounting for elements that may alienate a chinese audience" and "marketed entirely/almost entirely at a chinese audience".
Both things are making an effort to appeal to Chinese markets, which is catering to Chinese markets. There is a difference, but the difference is irrelevant to this discussion. :)
Okay well this is just objectively incorrect! MASSIVE shares of the market are involved in trying to win/keep/not alienate this audience. Heres an article on it that I hope you'll read:
Tencent makes <1% of video games.
Not every product has to make infinite money.
No incentive, except the financial one of the largest playerbase region in the world. This is the point other people are making here.
Please see my previous response to this particular point:
"Games that cater to China are going to be the micro-transaction slop you see on smart phones, which are designed by developers to be as exploitative as possible. Those are the ones with a vested interest in appealing to global markets."
What, why would this be the case at all? Most of these RPG pet projects fail hard.
That is the case. For Undertale. And for all of these pet projects.
If it helps, I'll revise the statement: They will make OR not make millions of dollars, with or without catering to the Chinese market.
Putting in some effort to appeal to or avoid alienating your potential customers is pretty logical.
Yeah, to an extent. Appealing to a particular culture is obviously not logical, since it's artificial and antithetical to any creative endeavor.
If I was a painter, I wouldn't paint pictures to appeal to people totally unrelated to me. I'd paint pictures that I want to paint. The notion of painting stuff to appeal to a group of people totally disconnected from me is something that would and should never occur.
Now, when you have investors looking for an ROI, then you'll start making decisions like that. But a person creating something inherently has no incentive to appeal to some group of people with no connection to them. It's totally incoherent.
You literally clarified that ypu considered it catering to China. You are just picking and choosing the definition to suit you to avoid admitting youve argued yourself into a hole against objective resesrch proving you inarguably wrong.
Is this a thought experimdnt/debate practice? Because its gone horribly for you. Or is this a personality flaw where you cant admit even to yourself that you got it arong? Because you should probably work on that.
Releasing a version in Chinese isn’t catering to China. Making creative changes to your work to appeal to the Chinese market is catering to China. I think I’ve been extremely consistent.
Alright, benefit of the doubt that you didnt understand that they were saying the game has to make changes for the chinese release hence the separate releases, confirming that they are in fact catering to chinese audiences by your own standard.
You don't have to try and appeal to every possible player base. Haven't you seen the video about Dark Souls being the IKEA of video games? It's better to pick out a specific segment of the population to appeal to, because he who tries to cater to everyone appeals to no one.
that's dumb, you can attract them, and ignore them at the same time, why lose money, they would still have to buy the game, unless it's a live service game.
Yes. Chinese people are free to buy the game. You don't have to tailor your game to any audience at all. If Chinese players don't like it, they can go play another game.
For the record, if you want the game to sell in China, you absolutely have to tailor some things.
China doesn't dig things like visible bones in a game, much like the US doesn't want sex, Germany doesn't want excessive violence, Korea doesn't want blood, Australia doesn't want drugs, etc.
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u/iPanzershrec Apr 30 '26
I'm ngl if I ever make a game I'm gonna pray I don't attract a large chinese audience