Super interesting article by PC Gamer(https://www.pcgamer.com/between-cen...ese-indie-developers-are-hanging-by-a-thread/):
And way way more at the article. It's a pretty interesting dive at the Chinese indie scene, and Steven Messner did an amazing job, so I really hope you check it out in its entirety
How government regulations and sudden market shifts threaten China's growing indie scene.
West of the neon towers of Shanghai's Pudong district, along the Wusong River that winds through a quieter part of the city, a few hundred developers are challenging the conventions of China's unparalleled $33 billion videogame industry.
In a market defined by free-to-play online games, the term 'indie' doesn't mean much to a lot of Chinese gamers. But that doesn't stop over 10,000 attendees from gathering on the first floor of the enormous Shanghai Convention and Exhibition Center of International Sourcing to showcase and celebrate Chinese indie games. Called WePlay Game Expo, this conference is the only one of its kind in China—a haven for a fledgling indie scene whose future depends almost entirely on the regulations of China's government and, surprisingly, a Seattle-based company: Valve.
China has more gamers than anywhere else in the world (roughly 800 million), but its industry is saturated with samey free-to-play mobile and PC games—most oozing with pay-to-win schemes and loot boxes—which have reigned supreme since online gaming exploded in the mid-2000s. WePlay Game Expo and the developers who attend it are looking to change that.
It's like a miniature version of PAX West, the American game convention that invades downtown Seattle each August. Though there are a few big-budget, international games (a 2K Games booth sporting the divine visage of Borderlands 3's iconic Psycho greets me as I walk in), deeper into the swell of the crowd is where the coolest stuff is.
Near the middle of the hall, a pair of Touhou cosplayers struggle to control adorable robots in a game called Biped. I'm drawn in by the cutesy aesthetic, but Biped quickly reveals itself as a sinister cross between QWOP and Overcooked, a co-op puzzle platformer where the simple act of moving requires an uncommon level of dexterity. It's a wonderful kind of game that can strain friendships to their limit.
Just a few years ago, a scene like this probably would've been impossible in China. Whether or not it will last remains uncertain.
Bao was years ahead of the curve. In 2015, Steam added support for Chinese payment options like Alipay, exposing a few million Chinese gamers to a massive, unregulated market of games, many of which were independently made. Steam's Chinese audience doubled in just a year. And when PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds became a phenomenon in 2017, it doubled again. There are now an estimated 30 million Chinese users on Steam, making China one of Steam's largest demographics.
But Steam's popularity is just a drop in the bucket compared to China's gargantuan PC gaming industry, which pulled in $15.2 billion in 2018—over half of what the United States' entire games industry, including console and mobile games, made in that same period. Despite its size, China's PC gaming scene is largely dominated by free-to-play MMOs and clones of popular western games. Crossfire, for example, is a Counter-Strike clone by Korean developer Smilegate that boasts an astonishing 660 million players, most from China, and has grossed an estimated $10.6 billion as of 2018. You won't find many big singleplayer RPGs like The Witcher 3 or shooters like Control being made in China.
That yearning for emotional expression and cultural commentary is what made Coconut Island's partnership with the developers of Chinese Parents a perfect fit. Developed by Moyuwan Games, a team of three people, Chinese Parents is an insightful, often touching, and frequently hilarious look into the stresses of growing up in modern China. Half puzzle game, half life sim, the goal is to balance personal development, having fun, and the soaring expectations of your family and China's rigorous education system.
Chinese Parents released on Steam in September of 2018 and quickly surged to the top of Steam's global top sellers list, proving Bao's belief that Chinese gamers weren't only interested in free-to-play MMOs. Though Chinese Parents was only available in Simplified Chinese, it sold well over a million copies—half of which came from Steam.
Chinese Parents isn't the only game to defy the stereotype. In a Starbucks just behind the convention center, I squeeze into a corner with a few of the developers of The Scroll of Taiwu. Like Chinese Parents, The Scroll of Taiwu launched on Steam in September of 2018 and soon became a global top seller. "We almost lost our minds," Adam, The Scroll of Taiwu's art director, tells me while sipping an iced tea. "We were totally crazy about it."
The Steam loophole
China's enormous videogame industry is beginning to stagnate, according to many of the developers I've spoken to. Part of that reason is simply due to oversaturation of similar games, but it also has a lot to do with the Chinese government's increasingly heavy-handed regulations and censorship.
For decades, the Chinese government has enforced strict censorship of all media and information. A pervasive firewall blocks access to Google, Facebook, Twitch, and hundreds of other websites. But strangely, Steam is not one of them. Despite its enormous market of unregulated games, Steam is easily accessed in China. Only its Steam Community features, like forums, are disabled, and no one really knows if that was the Chinese government's doing or Valve acting preemptively. For China's indie developers, Steam is an invaluable loophole in a bureaucratic system that would otherwise destroy them.
To legally publish a game in China, developers must first obtain the proper license. This requires submitting your game to be reviewed by the State Administration of Press and Publication which examines games to ensure they abide by China's strict rules. This includes everything from having no blood and gore, sexual content, or themes that run counter to China's state-sanctioned values. Looking around at the various indie games at WePlay, I quickly lose count of the games that might break one of these rules.
[...] That's why Steam has become an invaluable lifeline for China's small indie community. "I would say 100 percent of China's indie scene is alive because of Steam," says Zifei Wu, president of My Time at Portia developer Pathea Games.
PC gaming is often celebrated as an open platform where players have the choice to control every detail of their experience—where to buy games and how to play them. But the dependency Chinese developers have on Steam to survive is a reminder that the experience of playing and making games on PC is far from universal. "If Steam wasn't available, we wouldn't be doing this," says another anonymous developer. "I think that's probably the case for most developers in China."
"Steam is 100 percent the most important thing for our survival," says a different developer. "Two years ago, I wasn't in the games industry at all, and Steam is the only reason I can survive."
Thanks to Steam, any Chinese developer can sidestep the approvals process and launch their game right away. And even though Steam's 30 million Chinese users is tiny compared to its overall gaming population, it's more than enough to sustain China's indie developers. But, like the government's constantly shifting regulations, that can change at a moment's notice.
Uncertain futures
This year, Valve and its Chinese business partner Perfect World have plans to launch a version of Steam that's just for China. One promised benefit is local servers that will guarantee a more stable multiplayer experience, but the downside is that Steam China will only sell games that are properly licensed by the government.
The big question is what happens to Steam's current "global" version when Steam China launches later this year. Is Steam China going to replace Steam? In an interview with Eurogamer, Valve's DJ Powers said it was Valve's "goal" to make sure that players didn't lose access to their library, saves, or other data. He also said that "nothing'll change about Steam global," but none of the developers I spoke to regarding Steam China take solace from those vague remarks.
"Steam China is terrifying," an anonymous developer tells me. "It's horrible. I'm not sure what it will be, but I hope players can still access international Steam."
If Steam is blocked it could devastate China's indie community.
And way way more at the article. It's a pretty interesting dive at the Chinese indie scene, and Steven Messner did an amazing job, so I really hope you check it out in its entirety
