With the gradual growth of mainland game companies and changes in the industrial ecology, "going out" has become the consensus of Chinese game companies at this stage. In this process, games have not only become an important force in the export of China's cultural and creative industries to earn foreign exchange, but also become a new carrier for the dissemination of Chinese culture.
Nandu reporter observed that in a number of games with remarkable achievements in the sea, such as "Forever Destroyed" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms Strategy Edition", the obstacles to localization have not consumed the "cultural self-confidence" of the game project, and the core and elements of the game with oriental cultural colors have become the foundation of the game, becoming the bridge and link of cultural exchanges between the East and the West, and the status of the game as the "ninth art" has become increasingly prominent.
Last year, the game went to sea, with revenue of $18 billion
Under the influence of many factors such as the protection of minors, the suspension of the issuance of version numbers, and the fierce competition in stock, the growth rate of the domestic game industry has slowed down. According to the "2021 China Game Industry Report", the actual sales revenue of China's game market in 2021 was 296.513 billion yuan, although it increased by 6.4% year-on-year, but the growth rate was nearly 15% smaller than that of 2020.
Affected by this, the competitive landscape has not yet been solidified, and overseas markets with broader market prospects have become more and more valued by enterprises, and game going to sea has become the only choice for game companies to survive the pain. According to the "2021 China Game Industry Report", the actual sales revenue of China's self-developed games in overseas markets in 2021 reached 18.013 billion US dollars, an increase of 2.563 billion US dollars over 2020, an increase of 16.59% year-on-year.
According to incomplete statistics, Tencent, NetEase, Cmega and other game companies have set a target of 50% of the total revenue of the game in the overseas market, and many game manufacturers such as 37 Interactive Entertainment, Heartbeat Network, Dreamworld, and Xinghui Interactive Entertainment have also taken the game to the sea as a new growth point and launched corresponding overseas products.
"For most Chinese game manufacturers, going to sea will double their theoretical market space," a research report by Guohai Securities predicts that the size of China's mobile game market will reach 167.4-215.2 billion yuan by 2024.
At the same time, the recognition and support of the policy for the game to go to sea is also rising. In November 2021, the Ministry of Commerce, the Central Propaganda Department and 17 other departments jointly issued the Notice on Several Measures to Support the High-quality Development of National Cultural Export Bases, mentioning that excellent traditional cultural products, cultural and creative products and digital cultural products such as film and television dramas and games are encouraged to "go global". Previously, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other cities have introduced game industry support policies to encourage game companies to go to sea.
According to the Sensor Tower intelligence platform, in March 2022, a total of 38 Chinese manufacturers were shortlisted in the global mobile game publisher revenue list TOP100, with a total revenue of more than 2.22 billion US dollars, accounting for nearly 40.2% of the global TOP100 mobile game publisher revenue.
As an important force in the export of China's cultural and creative industry, games have become a new carrier for the dissemination of Chinese culture. At the 2021 Annual Conference of the Game Industry, Zhang Zhi'an, a professor at the School of Communication and Design at Sun Yat-sen University, believed that "a single cultural narrative is no longer able to carry the need for diversified identity." Relying on the information, social, entertainment, consumption and other scenes provided by the Internet public space to create and share together, will be a new way of international dissemination in the future, and games will be one of the good carriers. ”
Yang Fang, deputy director of the Publishing Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department, said at the opening ceremony of ChinaJoy in 2021, "Judging from our experience in entering the international market over the years, Chinese elements are an important 'gene' for games to go to sea; we must continue to sum up successful experiences, inject more Chinese spirit and Chinese strength into Chinese games, create more cultural symbols with wide influence, and let Chinese stories and Chinese culture go further and more deeply in the hearts of the people in the world with the help of the wings of science and technology and creativity." ”
Wuxia games make the global list
In the process of the game going to sea, localization and regionalization have always been the first levels for game manufacturers to attack the city. To this end, many game manufacturers tend to choose a more Westernized and generalized IP story architecture to quickly gain market access.
However, NetEase's 24 Entertainment Studio did not "take advantage", but boldly chose the story setting of oriental martial arts elements and mysterious colors, thus producing the popular online game "Forever Doomed" in 2021.
"With the evolution of the times, xianxia, two-dimensional, cyberpunk and other themes lined up to meet the player's desires, but martial arts gradually faded out of the player's vision, and even became the threshold of the player's "' Guan Lei, the producer of the game "Forever Doom", admitted that in the field of Chinese cultural creation, in the past two decades, in addition to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" has set off a wave of martial arts boom, there has been no follow-up wave. At the same time, in the process of game promotion, the natural acceptance of Chinese culture by Western countries is relatively low and is a problem that the team has to face.
However, Guan Lei still believes that "these new game themes cannot interpret and present the confrontation between the real master and the superhuman of traditional Chinese martial arts, and I think the gameplay of martial arts games is worth continuing." ”
It is based on the confidence and recognition of oriental martial arts culture that Guan Lei did not choose a Westernized IP as the core of the game worldview to please a specific group in the game "Forever Destroyed", which was opened to the global market at the beginning of the project.
The game is full of Chinese style.
In terms of the background setting of the game, "Eternal Destruction" chooses to open with the fantasy Jin Wu and the Candle Dragon creating gods for the heavens and the earth and introducing the confrontation of the human gods and gods after the Shooting Sun, building an epic narrative that is acceptable to Western traditions. In "Forever Destroyed", a similar scene is staged at every moment: in the overhead world, Chinese chivalry, Japanese samurai, Central Asian assassins, steppe warriors and many other characters are using moves rich in the core of oriental martial arts, and the essence of "I am free" between one move and one style subtly understands and accepts the hard-core concepts of jianghu and martial arts that are difficult to convey.
Relevant information shows that 90 days after the global release, the sales volume of "Forever Doom" exceeded 6 million copies, and the number of people online at the same time on the world-renowned game platform Steam reached 174,000, and the global player praise rate was 83%, setting a new record for the sales of domestic buyout games.
In the Steam 2021 Best List, domestic games such as "Eternal Destruction" and "Ghost Valley Eight Wilds" are on the list. "Forever Doom" was selected into the "Platinum" list, alongside "Rainbow Six", "CS:GO", "Battlefield 2042", "DOTA2" and other world-renowned masterpieces.
Poster of the domestic game "Ghost Valley Eight Wilds".
The "Ninth Art" became a cultural bridge
In July 2021, China's Ministry of Commerce released the list of key enterprises and key projects for national cultural export in 2021-2022, with the proportion of game companies exceeding 20%, and games such as "Original God", "Ark of Tomorrow" and "Ball Battle" were on the list.
It is worth noting that Twitter released the top ten games with the highest topicality in the world in the first quarter of 2022, and the domestic mobile game "Original God" defeated many popular products such as "Eldon's Law Ring", "Apex Heroes" and "Final Fantasy", ranking first.
Screenshot of the video of "Goddess Splitting".
At the beginning of 2022, "Original God" launched the opera singing video "Goddess Split View" dubbed by Yang Yang, a national first-class actor of The Shanghai Peking Opera House and sung by Xun Pai Huadan Yang, which exploded overseas, and "Chinese opera", "Peking opera" and "Chinese music" became the keywords of overseas netizens' hot search for a while. As of now, "Goddess Split View" has been played more than 5 million times on YouTube and received more than 10,000 comments. Many foreign netizens commented on the need to "teach themselves to understand opera Chinese and opera singing style", and even some people have begun to study the art form of "Goddess Splitting View" in depth.
"Black Myth: Wukong" is a typical representative of "wine is not afraid of deep alleys", only three demonstration videos have attracted the attention of many foreign media, IGN official Youtube channel 2020 trailer playback rankings, the second place is the official real demonstration of the domestic game "Black Myth: Wukong". At the same time, foreign bloggers who have attracted more than one million fans have produced analytical videos about the background of the game and "Journey to the West", and some overseas bloggers have associated with unpopular images such as Torture Day and Akajiri Horse Monkey, and even the 1986 version of the "Journey to the West" TV series has added many foreign users who have come to punch in.
"Punch card fever" originates from the exquisite game scenes of "Black Myth: Wukong" and the accurate restoration of realistic cultural relics. The main creative team used the industry's cutting-edge technology to realistically restore the details, and made a virtual restoration for these cultural relics and monuments. In addition to restoring the 28-star statue of the Jade Emperor Temple in Jincheng, it also presents cultural relics and monuments such as the stone scripture building of the Foguang Temple on Wutai Mountain, the Dazu Stone Carving Thousand Buddha Bay Thousand Hands Guanyin Shrine in Dali, Yunnan, and other cultural relics and monuments.
Traditional architecture in Black Mythology: Goku.
At the West Lake Forum held at the China Academy of Art, when talking about why he chose the theme of "Journey to the West", the answer given by Yang Qi, the creator of "Black Myth: Wukong", is: cultural self-confidence. Yang Qi said that in the field trip found that time has left no room for the destruction of ancient buildings, in order to retain the beauty and influence of those ancient buildings, he decided to show these buildings with historical stories in the online game, so that people can feel the beauty of ancient buildings.
"Let players use the game as a carrier to feel the traditional Chinese culture up close, naturally to perceive, recognize, and even let overseas users have an interest in traditional Chinese culture, I think these results are of great significance", Guan Lei said, "Forever Doom" restores the horse head knife, Qin Feng battle armor, Han Dynasty war armor, Mingguang armor and other historical relics, and will cooperate with pingyao Wentaofang Ancient Weapons Museum, Jinsha Site Museum, Longmen Grottoes and other cultural and creative units in the future. Cooperate and disseminate high-quality content that embodies traditional Chinese culture.
Producer: Nandu Internet Entertainment Industry Research Group
Written by: Nandu reporter Chen Peijun