Top trends in Chinese gaming in 2024
Game industry x VR tools
The Metaverse already made waves in 2023 along with the Apple Vision headset. We’ve witnessed a premiere of Meta Quest3 and Meta Quest Pro and both of them being highly creative tools. As Meta set a deal with Tencent, in 2024 we could see a surge in sales of VR headsets in China.
VR devices are used mainly in social connections and entertainment.
Although the presence of this technology is still not that strong in the gaming industry, Chinese publishers are making moves to give VR games more exposure. What’s interesting is while the mobile games market in China was making new heights they doubled down on blending this tech into PC games.
With VR listed among the “key industries'' for digital development in the Chinese Five-Year Plan from 2021 to 2025, expect more new technologies and possibilities.
Access to Artificial Intelligence
With the AI invasion of 2023, it's no surprise to see it popping up in gaming. AI is already involved in creating storylines, more human-like characters, dialogues and even helping with worldbuilding.
Game developers whose target market is China should definitely pay attention to it.
We’re not saying that you should replace everyone with Chat GPT & Midjourney, but it’s good to have this trend in mind. Our team took part in the 2023 WePlay event in Shanghai, and we can confirm that many exhibitions contained games created fully by AI.
Retro games getting remastered versions
All gamers love new technologies and solutions within the game industry, and we’re starting to see retro-style games making a comeback. Just take a look at GOG.COM. Yeah, adding shiny bells and whistles is cool and all but maybe taking a step back is a better option.
It’s a good choice if we want to gain the attention of a more old-school fanbase. Old games that come back with a new version, better graphics and/or more storyline extensions are a good choice to gain new players in various age groups. It may seem that Chinese gaming communities don’t pay attention to retro games, but older Nintendo games are actually strongly connected to childhoods of some advanced gamers. Many of them still remember iQue Player, manufactured by Nintendo.
That’s why it’s time for the studios to think about doing remakes, like the strongly anticipated Final Fantasy VII Rebirth with a premiere set in 2024.
Rise of cross-media campaigns
Sometimes it’s hard to get players' attention using just game-related stuff. The idea of doing more cross-entertainment content is last on today’s agenda.
During the China Game Industry Annual Conference, the topic of increasing cross-media content came up more than a few times. Cross-media content between games, cartoons, books and comics maximizes the scale of outreach.
A strategic plan is to reach out to all types of communities to attract and gain their attention. For example, are you into anime? Play Genshin Impact! You’re fascinated by the world of Chinese wuxia literature? Why don’t you try playing Wandering Sword?
That’s why next year we may expect more cooperation between the game industry and other entertainment sources.
Yes, we mentioned that mobile games in China reached the top, but it doesn’t mean that future trends won't also strongly focus on mobile services. Taking into consideration that China has over 660M active mobile game users, we expect nothing less than an increase in mobile service development. From our perspective, the mobile games market will have a huge impact on trends in Chinese gaming and we can’t wait to see what this year has in store.
Want to know more about the future Chinese gaming industry? Let’s talk about it!