Publishing in China | PocketGamer.biz RoundTable

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right I think we are ready to get started so thank you everyone for joining us this morning usually do these in the afternoon my time at least as the as we have people coming in from Asia and China we figured we do something in the morning so we could have a different group of people coming and joining us to discuss blushing in China on this the baka game adopters roundtable session so you know China remains one of the biggest markets in mobile games and is hugely popular and usually difficult to get into I think for a lot of people who are sort of coming at it from outside of the the region and also it's sort of been in the news recently because of Apple and its new approach to approval numbers in the ISBN is it sometimes referred to and so yeah we'll get onto all sorts of topics but first of all I'd like to let my panelists introduce themselves so we'll start with Owen if you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what your computers and all

that's okay hi everyone so I'm Owen I am the founder of slack it's a advisory consulting consultancy that I help developers pitch and digital publishers in China so I help developers manage their entry into China yep cool ante hello my name is something and I'm from my games and my games we are offering value services for content providers publisher studios to go and tackle the Chinese mobile market specialized on Android with our own SDK to cover their top market places and also lots of other services that we can help our clients with cool i'm viviane server and come here

no unfortunately not yet yes that's perfect yep so we are the hyper casual mobile publisher from both West and East we call it like a truly global cool thank you and Gabriel okay I'm Gabriel I'm the founder of merfolk games a game development studio in Hong Kong and Shanghai thank you everybody so yeah as I said we're gonna talk about all sorts of things to do with China and publishing but I always like to get a good overview of the topic first so kind of my first question is how is China's mobile games market changed in the first half of 2020 and that doesn't necessarily have to have been a big change doesn't have to be anything huge

but how how is the market currently looking and what's new and what's interesting anybody feel free to jump in on that okay so I think that the biggest difference is that we have seen now in our side are that there are lots of consideration from the Chinese government on how to observe players and make sure that they're their well being of use is in place so what this has meant in on a regulation that there are something called like real name registration which is now closely followed and to kind of find out who is actually playing the game and then there are some anti addiction requirements that we've seen and and to basically follow on the play time player players are playing so so this is this is something that I think has affected on

also lots of lots of the play time that games are receiving because youth and young players are not able to spend so much time anymore online and I think that's been one of the one of the big things that we have seen in China now yeah yeah oh yeah so uh yeah I guess everyone the thing of everyone's mind is Ibn the application of the old that has been around for years in 2016 it's basically the implementation that's getting ever more strict so I guess for the early part of this year the main thing is that Apple has a known you know it's getting more and more strict on the idea and where

even local companies has a huge impact on a local market especially on the UA side so what I'm saying about the UA sigh I guess as we can talk about this a bit later is that the top 200 companies who are actually doing UA and paying and buying you a and like getting that own market going about 60% of those do not have an ID yet so yeah 60% of the top 200 well actually paying for you a so when that hits in August that actually is going to gonna have an effect everyone sort of like in a scramble mode for the first half of 2020 20 yes that is very correct and I heard like a number that 50% of the top 100 iOS top grossing games are going to be cut off

end of this month so it's going to be interesting to see how how it plays out but that's that's going to have a huge effect on on the revenue Apple is going to make in the market yeah well if that is followed already in the market good news for everyone we're not in the market yet welcome yeah exactly yeah that is true that is true and all the players who basically got their ISP they are now I think we've lost you again that's also a good alternative way

to cool Gabriel anything you've seen new and interesting in the Chinese market yeah I mean some things haven't changed too much like which John Roos are popular but I think what we've seen in terms of market share is the emergence of tick-tocks parent company by debts they've been making a lot of money around the world actually and so they've been kind of emerging in the past few months as a pretty big player in the game work cool actually speaking

speaking on the topic of genres like obviously you said that not changed what genres are popular but what genre is our most popular still in the region that developers should be looking at if they want to publish that game in China yeah I think casual gaming is definitely the big the big market share of the of you know China's gaming market for mobile you also have some popularity of MOBAs battle Royales some anime games and card games like hearthstone but I think in general casual is definitely king yes especially casual with PvP elements or like social elements in a yep yeah basically everything with PP or social element and mo casual so casual teepees more like slither or IO along along those lines or even like brawl stars I would consider them like casual casual MOBA with PvP element yeah and of course

the all the shooting games like which is a ten-cent I think number one number one game is it's called hopping thing I'm not sure what the English name is it's basically the pub g-george of China podgy yeah that feel pretty that's number one yeah and MOBAs like honor of kings is huge but maybe this is kind of like it's your enter in the market it's not going to be easy to do with the MOBA so casual games I think it's easier then I also heard some statistics that the RPG games are actually still the one of the biggest John hrus played they played in in a in a mainland China and which is great I've respect everybody who plays RPGs yep i'm viviane you obviously more interested in hyper casual how is that

is there like a very specific kind of hyper casual game that's doing well is hyper casual evolving in China or or is it saying pretty much the same so I would say usually it's like was the helper casual cool cool um and yeah so something we haven't really you know it's about the different things that are changing and everything like that but across the world obviously there's been the global pandemic and that's had a horrible effect on society in the world but in mobile games it seems to have like increased revenues just around the world is that still true

of China as well we seeing like increased revenues in that region anyone Arlington yes yes I think the answer is yes at least like in our games we have been able to see considerable growth I think ten cents like it when comparing to 2019 from the same time they went up 31 percent so that's that's a remarkable remarkable kind of a elevation in the in the play times then something else that we have seen in in our games is that the peak times has basically kind of a plateaued that people play all the time more and usually it is that on weekends you see that kind of curve above so so I think that the people are maybe maybe maybe playing every day like it's a weekend is that is that just during the

lockdown period or is that over like even after the lockdown period do you see like it he called no no I think that that the lockdown period was more like you could see this more clearly now now when when there is school schools schools are started again we started to see it all speaks kind of coming back so so basically basically I think that that that this was the early 2020 when when we went into this kind of phase and now we're I believe that we are moving towards to the normal situation little by little yep cool and I think I think that's the case for most people yeah yeah so we kind of touched on this but we do have a question from the audience and obviously if you are in the

audience please do dropping questions in the Q&A section China's now had a few good months of the post Peak covert life while much the West is still in lockdown has the local market how is the local market faring on metrics like downloads retention and spend compared to lock down months like you're saying obviously it's not as noticeable an SI is during the lockdown period but are we still is it still like an increase overall has changed habits in in the market and do you think these kinds of trends are something that we'll see in the rest of the world that is going to be interesting to see I think it's too early now to make like like a clear assessment on how the market is going to develop in the for the future but but IIIi would assume that lay habits can be a little bit different in in China than in the Western world but still people play mobile games quite

actively when they are when they are engaged so so I think there might be some parts of it that will translate to the Western world but it kind of remains to be seen how how how that will play out sort of sort of slightly related to that although it's not post coded I think it's also interesting to see the post ibn I think we've mentioned like those IBM which is first August when Apple do pull all the games down how that will affect the games that already have I at the end and how those games in terms of new tensions and like how how those will fare by the way if somebody doesn't know what is PN is is PN is the governmental license that is required for you to publish a game in in Chinese Android marketplaces this has

been for a long time requirement on Android side and now as Apple has changed their rules then ISBN governmental license will also be there required and 15 I think you were trying to say something but we're having some issues with your mic sorry yeah I think if you just lean lean a bit close to your microphone that might help a lot actually I see actually we do see like in China period actually our revenue is you know compared with global it's very interesting you know although you know we are still trying to figure out it like it's still far if I'm talking with the market talking with other publishers

you also see like in Asia in China cool um so sort of moving on from like looking at the market well not quite moving on but another sort of facet of it because I think looking into China he's kind of a very from the outside it can seem very confusing and difficult to get into but so I'm wondering I'm really first to you Gabriel on this one so we haven't heard from you in a little bit what do you think of some of the common mistakes and misconceptions people make regarding the Chinese mobile games market so I think something that's really big in China is the speed at which you are able to get the game out there so for example if there's a game that's really popular and suddenly is on the it's ranked as one of the top 10 games in the US they can you can expect that game to have a Chinese copy within

a month and there's this really small window of time where you hit popularity in the West you have a small window of time before someone creates the product faster than you could for the Chinese market so I think planning ahead and if you know if the if a game company does plan to eventually get to the Chinese market definitely planning ahead of time and expecting this to happen could save a lot of you know money on the developers part yes I agree with Gabriel like like us as we are trying to build with these long-term relationships with our partners when when we when we have been working for a longer time we of course hear from their projects beforehand and then we can basically start the application process for the ISP and a little bit earlier so we can basically we can get to the

market before it's too late as Gabriel said that there will be copycats on all of this but I think that the current waiting time from for the license is like over a year so even if you do the quickest way possible you're still gonna be late of that few months that you mentioned but but then then again we also believe that the studio that has made that like the original good idea the game mechanics and optimization is going to be better than the copycat so we so usually it plays out that these original games actually do pretty well when they get to the marketplace even though is there is like somebody who already kind of went and tried to steal it steal your your fame I I agree monkey

they already pick up yours as well so I don't think it's a huge issue yeah any other mistakes that people make when they go into the market or any misconceptions people might have about it Owen I think I think as time progresses people and people going to conferences like you know Pocket Gamer connects and different conferences and meeting publishers I think people started to have more of an idea of how China is and their knowledge base is going and going especially when they talk to other developers will talk to collisions so I guess everyone knows and yet everyone knows the android market is fragmented but not too fragmented as before I guess one of the misconception is that people think that you know like

20 to 30 over big App Store markets that feels over like a lot of App Store Android app stores but the ones that are important that covers the distribution widely is mainly the pop four or five like oppa bebo huawei tell me 10 cents so it's sort of from the publishing perspective it's a bit simpler because they need to focus on the big ass course another update is probably in terms of user acquisition in the West it's very mature and in the in China it's sort of picking up and it's actually growing very fast like people are doing a lot of user acquisition but I would say this is quite recent in the past like two or three years previously it's mostly it's mostly true the app stores but now a lot of news acquisitions which yeah which is

why it's a huge like viewing market play right now so actually oh when I that's it that's something really interesting about how the UK has evolved like like I have an understanding that by dance with the tic-tock offering has developed this like basically pushing the you a quality forward have you had the same experience that like this is this is something that is going to fundamentally changed the new way in like during 2020 I think yeah like the top view a platforms are 10 10 and by tense and then you have the second that's our first year and then the second year is you see by do and what they call it quite show and then that's like one tier below that but in terms of you a like everyone is yeah just doing you a on these platforms and that's why they're beating the prices up but I think where we talk to you a I guess we

have to let people talk about that then type of casual is oh you a so maybe you can hear from Vivian what the how how the you a thin yeah that would be interesting has been one of our global publishing I think there are now like a top three network market after that we of course we also try other network

yeah I definitely suggest for debt so as you say Oh anything as you say like a few people more people now understand the market a bit better they know what's going on they know everything about the the fragmentation of the android market as you say should developers still like Western developers still be working with the Chinese publisher to get into the market or is it has it become easier now to not on that I guess if you want to get into the China market that's the only way you have to work with China publisher more like depending depending

what you want so when I consult my client end of the day it depends on what sort of vision or what sort of strategy the client the developer has for China do they want to get into China you know just make a quick buck today's view China as a long-term play do they had some old games they want to sell off today you know do they want to co-develop the games with Chinese publisher those so they're I guess yeah a lot of different options but end of the day if you want to do anything in China actually want to apply for eyes the end you have to if you want to do China properly you have to go to go with a publisher something like my games or joy pact or some publishers yeah definitely fair enough second so on that front what kinds of developers and games are publishers such as Angie like what

kind of games and developers are you looking to work with when you're publishing a game in China though from games we usually like to work or work with Studios that already have like a proven track record so that we can basically measure the matrix beforehand and kind of see that okay this is something that that our customers would enjoy in China and of course we do like a rigorous evaluation process for the product that first we look at the metrics and then we look at the game itself and kind of test it on a local market like how does local people react to this game type of game and and then otherwise I don't think that there is there is a lot of something that we we would say no to of course like there

are some regulations that don't allow like we can't have horror games or something casino game slot machines this kind of stuff bedding wedding games so those are of course immediately cut off that we cannot get live in China but otherwise like you can have a coloring book application you can have RPG game or a match three game it's it's it's a market that can benefit from many genres and have popularity and Vivian I guess obviously joint practice focused largely on hyper casual what kind of developers are you looking to work with when you're thinking of publishing a game sorry we've lost your audio okay yes yeah of

course for the matured at the otherwise the we actually also thanks to those having like a potential then we can also help them to build up a team even you know and we can also give the game idea hoping a developer to ensure that that they will get to published okay so by early passing and those kind of things cool great

so we kind of spike an idea yeah yeah sorry about that yeah so yeah in addition to like of course publishers like they need to look at metrics in addition to that I think after talking with a few publishers of course every different publishers they are looking for different type of genres that feed the portfolio but all in all I think what they see that they themselves black in China is the ability to create unique gameplay so that's what they value a lot from developers from the west from us from Europe is the ability to create unique gameplay and unique graphics and that's what they are looking at in terms of the meta game I think it's good to have but the Chinese they trust their own ability to feel the matter game around in the gameplay and I

hope that answers the question Gabriel any thoughts on your end is a developer um yeah I think from what I understand it seems like publishers in China are it's easier for them to work with games that are already successful in the West just just to make it just kind of like it's it's a better it's an easier bet for the Chinese market if it already has kind of name and recognition because people in China aren't ignorant to you know the kinds of the popular games that like the ranked games in the US or in the UK so they're a lot of time they're kind of eager and waiting for a China release of a popular game so I think for that reason developers will definitely be more you know accepting and excited about games that are already successful

yeah yeah this is this is this is true true Gabriel like for example Hill Climb race which was a global success and when we got that one going in in China it's four hundred and eighty million players that's like absolutely amazing like like every European playing the game but III but I I'm really sure because how fast it got started they already knew about it and they wanted to play it and then it just got running so yeah so we kind of touched on this already a little bit I think we can go a little bit deeper into the end sort of thing so as it's been a thing for Android already in that and that's but now as of August first Apple will start removing names from the

or in the ISBN or approval number or whatever you used to call it I think stick with ISBN because everyone here um is this gonna have a particularly big impact on the market we think if when these games removed when the Opera free to are you you you broke up a bit oh sorry not the fan - and sorry so yeah Apple removing the is be moving games that don't have an ISBN do have in-app purchases is this going to have a big impact on the market do we think yeah I think sorry Gabriel you go for but yeah I mean it's definitely gonna have a huge

impact it's essentially gonna kill off a lot of indie publishers and indie Studios because it's basically going to be impossible to produce iPhone games if you're a tiny company and you don't have a collaboration with a large publisher or a local publisher so it's gonna be definitely very difficult for small studios yeah I would like to divide that into two parts like players and and studios so basically Chinese local Studios ascribe Gabriel is enjoying of these stages I can get the license quite quickly so so basic live for Western studios the problem is now that that that the disadvantage on getting to the marketplace but but then when if we're thinking about players point of view in in China there that's not going to be as huge maybe there is going to be a little

bit less Western games but still the local Studios basically can get their games quite quickly on the marketplace so so I think that that the biggest biggest change from from this apples apples change is going to be felt outside of China yeah one thing I guess that's not really sort of in the radar of Western developers is that in China that this thing called a reskin game where a single game with a single eye at the end the developer will sort of risk in that game in two like four or five different variations of the same game so apparently that has been a problem for Apple because it basically users would be sort of like tell you that true to shoot these games or like they're the developer will use like four variations of the same game to do you a so one the IDN comes crackdown

so actually a lot of talk and and in the Chinese China community is that you know how how this was like how the reskin game that's going to affect the market which is because once because the recent games are on the App Store without is P n so this is actually a positive for for the for the game market itself because you're sort of getting rid of sort of the bloated slightly bloated ecosystem and then maybe in the short term you a five is going to come down you have a lot more space for developers for unique games and new original games because otherwise the market is sort of bloated with reskin versions of different games so so that's a slightly positive note for IBM likes like positive yeah

vivianne a as far as I understand it this isn't really going to impact the hyper casual market because they are only led by ads and that's not covered by the ISBN is that correct but the way it's very like let's say only like a three percent five percent you know that's what I said earlier you know you can basically leave out it and the see if later in worse to apply the license for that a lot of developers I actually gave them a lot of a suggestion on items purchasing item to be word video you know so that makes also a positive way right

so yeah if I understand correctly the reward videos is like one of the most popular way of monetization at the moment yes a question for Vivian so at at fun at base game is still okay for as you know or do you hear any news that you know in the future that's going to be a problem for even at base game the China publishing to enter China because you know if you because you need to find

a local partner anyway you know so I would say that find a local partner who can also so you can do a package deal you know what developer it's gonna be like on our side oh and we are looking at this closely and and as we can see that the regulation is tightening all the time so I don't know it's hard to predict the future but but I think that it is possible that they add and add revenue will be considered to be under earning games like the regulation states like if you read the regulation it should already be like that but for some reason it's not and it's kind of interesting to see that are they going

to address it or are they going to let it slide so it's it's going to be interesting to see and that's going to be a you chase on the market if they require the government license for their also add funded gangs yep got it and so obviously this is going to affect quite a few developers is there anything that they can be doing now with their games in China to either stop this from happening or to weather the storm if they're about to lose revenues I've seen a suggestion somewhere the like developers should just start removing all their in-app purchases and replace it all with ads is that actually an effective method or is that not going to help very much for the hyper casual games or casual kind of games you know I do such as developer just had to consider when they define a game replacing ads or something but for hard

core or make core game I suggest to opener who already have this kind of base you know to help you go through the pipeline already at the beginning beginning yeah III agree with with Ian on this one like the best best kind of approach to the Chinese market is to do think about five five years like a long term plan I started with getting the license and then I get my game live and and and optimized with the monetization it's a huge market it can be as much revenue as us for your company so just if you start it with China do it properly and and don't try to do it quick and easy and and and kind of focus on it and and it will pay off that's that we have seen this it will pay off yeah I guess yeah in addition to that so

I think one of the change is that previously you have a game and then if you want to go to China you know you just go and you start figuring things out I guess the main change for a lot of developers right now is just sort of we tweak there are internal process that when you start making a game you just start thinking about China and sort of you can actually start the application process before you finish the game so I think hello maybe people are thinking oh I should finish the game and that's not the application process but actually you didn't hear it from me no one here for me so you can just start there that application process when you have like look a built that'll look final and then you can do it in parallel you can like you know build the game out like in a year and that have the application going in a year as well yeah yeah like a like a safe but it's a soft

launch building it's totally ready for that to start that line um and I'm not on that sort of note we do have a question from the audience so asking what the numbers are of like approvals that are currently waiting and sorry I think it's like the numbers of like how long is actually take to get through the application process has this sped up at all and does anybody have any idea how long the backlog is like how if you are gonna go that route how long is it actually going to take before you get to the point where you can release your game in China so I was always saying it's around 6 - sorry yeah six to nine months but backlog is still growing definitely yeah yeah that's it that's correct like yeah this year we have only seen two patches of approved games come in so and I think that that there are applications are going to grow now because of the Apple situation and it's

going to be interesting to see how the government can kind of address this demand at the moment what we are we're estimating is that it's from 12 to 18 months to get the ISP and approved for up for a foreign developer and then of course the local local local Studios can do it in I think three months or something like that three to six months thank you baby so just getting my head together here and and with that kind of idea in mind of it's gonna take 12 to 18 months to actually get your game in China is it still worth it I mean antivirus sort of said that it is but is it actually still worth it like the cost of getting that application the cost of localizing the game will it actually pay off for Western developers to get their games

into China yes III think it does like yeah III like to put it that way that if you have confidence in your game then don't go shopping for minimum guarantees and this kind of stuff just go and find a good partner that will take you came to the marketplace which took planning and and and you will see the revenue like it's basically like entering to another Europe and this this marketplace just has this little step that you first have to take and and and the 12 months that's not a long time when we think about it twelve months is twelve months it goes like this and and your game is game is slide so I I think that that if I have a confidence on my product I would most definitely want it to offer I want to offer it for Chinese buyers also yeah any other thoughts on sorry yeah so

well I think personally I think it depends on the developers on the size in particular so because I give your smaller studio then you need to prioritize better then I guess if you're a bigger studio and you have more risk-taking power than China is is a it's a easier it sort of a no-brainer so I why not whereas if you're a small studio then you just need to strategize better not to say that you shouldn't but it's more like what type of offers that you're looking for yeah you know I I totally agree with Owen over there that like that when when it Torrio is trying to basically focus on making the best game possible and then if your CEO is basically running the ISP and the kind of cooperation and partnership so you know one game when

you test it and already see the good result then you should already start to prepare that as a local studio we are we rejoin pack also has local office in Beijing local entity so that means that we can already start to prepare those documents and so Donna you know three to

six months sir then we are actually three months maybe we are ap you know and then after that we just on time to hit up them and scale up to they are TV and that's true when you're looking at it realistically how the how the publishing process goes it's not like not like the twelve months go that we are just sitting in fiddling with our thumbs there's actually a lot of stuff to do so I get to take a couple of questions from the audience now and Gabriel this one's for you so you kind of mentioned that the the ISBN thing is going to be sort of the death of indie games in China what is the current state of play of indie game

in China was there is there a strong than growing in you based scene or you know how much how much of that is actually gonna be felt in the wider industry I guess yeah I mean I think for mobile not really to be honest I think there there are like a lot of indie indie Studios and making you know casual games and things like that but I think it's China is still very much dominated by kind of like bigger companies when it when it comes to the mobile gaming industry hmm so I guess it's gonna have a wider impact more on sort of PC games and and that kind of thing I think it's gonna have a bigger impact on foreign indie Studios who kind of have an idea of publishing in China I think those are those are gonna be all who are hit hardest for sure I think you know

because I think indie game studios within China will will kind of be okay but it's gonna be difficult for then entering the final market but don't necessarily have a giant company with the funds to kind of back it up the funds in that and so just as a general sort of question I believe that the so if I get it if I'm correct on this the approval process there's no it doesn't sort of break it down into we're gonna approve X number of mobile games X number of PC games switch is gonna be involved in that now are we gonna see like a wider knock-on effect do we think if the rest of the games industry now that I own ball games part of this approval process right I mean last year we saw a massive backlog and a freeze for months and no one really knew it's very opaque the system is very opaque it's hard to research the exact numbers of and the approval process it you just

kind of have to try and wait and see try again yes and the applications are divided in three parts mobile platforms one then console has its own and PC has its own so I believe that these departments are also maybe running like individually so so the mobile department is most definitely going to have the heaviest impact on this one but console and PC I think they're just gonna keep escaping keep going this far I've got another one here and this one stay with you auntie for this one because someone's saying that 480 million players for hillclimb is huge which is fantastic what sort of player engagement and all revenues I needed to be in the top 10 in China is even possible to be in the top 10 in China if you're not 10

cent or Nettie's so I think I just had a conversation about this that it's really really hard to tackle those kind of games and genres that are are are there in the top 10 like we see like arena of Weller type of game and and like 1070 and Dennison days there and and so and a lot of games that we also know from being popular from the Western market so you for you to get into the top 10 is like the absolutely amazing and and it requires a lot of luck also if you are not one of the big players at the moment yeah any other thoughts on getting into the top 10 like how big your game really needs to be from anybody else I think

yeah just looking around like so I'm in Shanghai Avenue when you look around in the market the ones where top 10 at the level with celebrity endorsements so so that's that's a level that they are playing at TBC celebrity endorsements around the clock life of teams huge huge amount of investment being poured in I guess it's yeah in terms of the amount of effort and money it's it's really yeah but we're talking about NFL like it's it's just huge but but I guess the the key I guess it's great to look at top 10 but even just looking at top 100 there's you know it's it's a big market yeah agree with you basically the top ranking is like a really great thing but

in terms of the revenue sometimes it's not that's true we have another question here and then I'm gonna go sort of final thing but from the audience and where our Chinese publishers focusing their efforts aside from the domestic market is the Western market still a massive target or is there more focus on Korea Japan Southeast Asia what kind of areas are we looking outside of China well I think if we're talking about game developers there's definitely because of the newly introduced rules and regulations there's definitely been a huge push for game developers and to look outside of China and usually the first stop is other Chinese language regions so Taiwan is a kind of the

easiest market and Singapore as well as Hong Kong to a certain extent and kind of after after like taking the first steps outside of China to Taiwan Singapore Hong Kong and Macau they then do other Asian markets so maybe Japan and Korea and you know if they're feeling very uh very risky they will try pushing for the US or European or American market and so I've personally seen a huge flood of Chinese game ads on my Facebook feed with you know interesting English but you we fell in the past year that there's been a huge effort on local domestic firms who suddenly you know they've been catering to a 1 billion strong market suddenly trying to go global and pushing ads to Europe America and the rest of

Asia for sure yeah III think that the Arron Afflalo is one of these interesting kind of examples that that was a huge hit in in China and still is like one of the most played game of all the games in China and and when when they prodded it to the Western markets there was like I would say semi serious kind of effort to get it up and running but they they they were I think they were a little bit hesitant that it will this be good for this market and and of course eventually it was discontinued so so it didn't reach the metrics that they were planning but I think that fundamentally the let's say Europe and us there are a lot of players who are playing these games with a PC or a console and in China there are a lot of people who don't have these devices they have mobile devices but they want to

play MOBAs so so they can actually benefit from that but but but so there are like these big differences on the market they're trying and sometimes they're failing sometimes they're they succeed so so it is interesting to see what what China can bring to the Western markets in the future yeah it's interesting that these difficult situations have really pushed Chinese game companies to go global and I think in the next five years we're gonna see a lot more you know failures but also a lot of successes of Chinese company entering the Western market it's gonna be interesting yeah it's going to be interesting and I think that it's it's good for the whole ecosystem because it brings more diversity because it's coming from a different place different mentalities so new kind of new gotta games like we've been enjoying for like four decades Japanese games and they are developed in a very certain way and

people absolutely love them so maybe maybe Chinese can build this kind of development style in the future yeah one thing that yeah well one thing too that is a in terms of media narrative like looking at all the Chinese game media it's very heavily focused on Western Western markets like every month or every week they're gonna have a post so and so which company is making so much money in the West so and so which company is with which title is making money in the West but usually revolves around yeah you know and I'm ranking about so they always sort of tried to the narrative is like okay these guys now are making it in the West so you know you you guys should you know step up your game I think that sort of the narrative in China I think apart from you know the Holy Grail is US and Europe

but then yeah Japan and Korea is next and then of course obvious Asia yeah sorry go on Vivienne we were trying to say something not only China we're just can we go on time now but we're kind of on to the discussion of sort of what's coming for the future of China and Chinese games and do you have any other predictions about the future of the mobile games market in China or Chinese developers as a whole so we

haven't already I think so I think it's gonna like the the trend of Chinese games that is that the quality is improving quite rapidly and I think it's it will continue to improve that a celebrated pace for all the quality of the Chinese games either don't want to stay in China or the ones that are coming going global localization I would say sometimes you know if you design the game very well you know a kid can just see that's the best experience and CEO Gabriel any of the predictions for the future of China in mobile games so I imagine I imagine

in these Studios and smaller Studios kind of struggling with regulations as they get tighter and tighter so I think in the next few years you'll probably see some bigger bigger game companies kind of buying out smaller game companies so in terms of the developers side that's kind of what I'm imagining will happen and I think I don't think that you'll see a lot of you know straight-up liquidation or anything like that but I think we'll definitely see some kind of scooping up of these smaller game companies yeah I think like the experience I have from from China and about the regulations and Allison and the been following them for some years not only for games but everything what what happens in in China is that that you can never kind of know what to

expect and and you'll be the better be prepared for it and that's the terms okay great I think that's everything touched on there that I wanted to sort of ask about so thank you very much for for joining me on this it was really interesting and very insightful and I hope everybody watching there's learn something in it and had a really interesting hour as well we will be back for the roundtable session in a fortnight on July the 28th at the regular time of 4 p.m. BST where we'll be discussing the death of the IDF a another thing that was going to affect iOS across the world not just in China so please join us for that and but for now thank you for ever so much for joining us and thank you again to the panelists and we'll see you another time goodbye thank you Rick thank you everybody

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