War Thunder

Marketing | Aleksander Ptak | Why Everything You Knew About Publishing in China Is Now Obsolete

• Around 80% of China's gaming market is mobile and about 15% is PC, yet Steam's global version hosts most of the PC player base, so Chinese players largely use global Steam rather than a Chinese storefront.
• Chinese players communicate almost exclusively through Steam reviews, so Western social media influencer campaigns (even 50,000–60,000 euro budgets) often fail to drive traffic that reaches Chinese platforms like Douyin and Bilibili.
• Refund rates in China run around 15–30% versus 8–10% in the West, because players treat refunds as a demo option, making clear tutorials and accurate Chinese translation critical for retention.

Can a Bad Name Hurt a Good Game?

The extraction shooter genre is undergoing a strategic evolution as developers increasingly integrate cooperative PvE modes to mitigate the high churn rates associated with purely competitive PvP environments.

• Extraction shooters like ARC Raiders are shifting toward PvE-focused co-op modes because player data shows a growing audience segment that prefers cooperative play over the high-stress, hardcore PvP experience.
• The lack of formal contracts in the Roblox ecosystem is leading to legal disputes, as early contributors to successful games seek compensation after being excluded from revenue shares that can reach millions of dollars per month.
• Game titles do not significantly impact commercial success as long as they are functionally distinct and searchable; generic names are common across successful titles like War Thunder, Delta Force, and World of Tanks.