Support NeoGAF

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Valve recently published the latest Steam Hardware & Software Survey. According to the figures, August 2024 saw Chinese-speaking users outnumber English-speaking users by an unprecedented margin.

Simplified Chinese is a language with an extremely large user population on Steam to begin with, usually coming in second after English and leading over Russian by a margin of more than 20%. In fact, Chinese briefly took the top spot from English in February 2024, but the difference was a mere 0.7%. However, according to Valve’s August data, the number of players using the platform in Simplified Chinese increased by a further 3%, taking the top spot with a lead of about 4% over English.

An undeniable reason for this is the strong performance of the Chinese-produced Black Myth: Wukong, which launched on August 20. The title has become the second largest game ever on Steam with more than 2.41 million concurrent players (SteamDB). Furthermore, cumulative sales exceeded 10 million units in the first three days after launch. According to GameDiscoverCo, Chinese users made up approximately 88% of Black Myth: Wukong’s Day 1 playerbase on Steam. This may be what pushed the total Chinese-speaking user count to the top spot.

In recent years, the Chinese market has seen a trend of free-to-play mobile games being popular. Game Science, the studio behind Black Myth: Wukong, also previously worked on F2P games such as Art of War: Red Tides. Black Myth: Wukong is the studio’s first large-scale development project, and it seems to be signaling that some Chinese-speaking players are moving towards full price PC games. On a related note, big Chinese publishers such as Tencent and NetEase seem to have set their sights on seizing this new momentum in the domestic scene, which has, as a by-product, caused them to lose interest in investing in Japanese games.

With more Chinese games coming to Steam in the upcoming period, such as S-GAME’s highly anticipated kung-fu action game Phantom Blade Zero, Chinese-speaking Steam users may increase even more in the future.

Steam sees Chinese users outnumber English-speaking users by significant margin as Chinese market interests shift beyond mobile games - AUTOMATON WEST

According to Valve, August 2024 saw Chinese-speaking users outnumber English-speaking users by a significant margin.

automaton-media.com

 

[LectureMaster]

Wukong is definitely the driving force.

Still consistently peak over 1 million daily, two weeks after launch.

 

[Fabieter]

88% of the sales in china wow. I hope for valve that western trade wars won't kill steam china.

 

[LectureMaster]

88% of the sales in china wow. I hope for valve that western trade wars won't kill steam china.

If anything kills Steam in China, it will be nobody other than Chinese government itself.

 

[Fabieter]

If anything kills Steam in China, it will be nobody other than Chinese government itself.

That what I just said.

 

[Midn1ght]

"Nice"

 

[bbeach123]

Nothing new , when PUBG peaked chinese vs the rest of the world steam users was like 2:1 ratio .

 

[Soodanim]

That's a substantial audience. I wonder if it will drop off when Wukong does or if they're here to stay.

 

[ArtHands]

China be like

 

[Midn1ght]

That's a substantial audience. I wonder if it will drop off when Wukong does or if they're here to stay.

There's a bunch of upcoming Chinese games in the work and they look great so as long as they keep delivering quality titles my bet is they are here to stay.

 

[Hudo]

Maybe that will motivate Valve to make Half-Life 3

 

[lh032]

sad day

 

[nowhat]

"Nice"

Gabe doesn't realize that butt plug is too large even for him.

 

[LazyParrot]

There's a bunch of upcoming Chinese games in the work and they look great so as long as they keep delivering quality titles my bet is they are here to stay.

Why are they all trying to make the same game?

 

[Felessan]

Why are they all trying to make the same game?

It's like asking why Japan do their anime jrpgs
Wuxia (combat oriented fantasy) and historical drama (often also war/combat focused) are popular in China
They had these action-rpg games for a long time (sword and fairy, Xuan Yuan sword etc), they just were very niche.

 

[Shubh_C63]

There's a bunch of upcoming Chinese games in the work and they look great so as long as they keep delivering quality titles my bet is they are here to stay.

Holy shit China is on a warpath.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Well if I was Tecmo Koei I’d probably be sweating as their little niche is about to be oversaturated.

 

[LazyParrot]

It's like asking why Japan do their anime jrpgs
Wuxia (combat oriented fantasy) and historical drama (often also war/combat focused) are popular in China
They had these action-rpg games for a long time (sword and fairy, Xuan Yuan sword etc), they just were very niche.

Yeah, sure. But Japan has always had nationally and internationally successful high-profile games that weren't anime JRPGs, even going way back into the 80s. Considering China has like 10 times the population of Japan there's got to be big studios out there working on something other than mobile slop and third person action RPGs. Are they not interested in selling their games internationally, or do Western publishers and platforms just refuse to give them the time of day?

 

[ArtHands]

Why are they all trying to make the same game?

Because console fans have no knowledge on the China market beyond the handful same few that Sony advertise, mostly due to lack of popularity of consoles in China. And Sony prioritizes those action games with high end graphic to sell their consoles.

In reality the China market has been releasing various types of games on Steam for years, many of which doesn’t release on consoles.

Lunar New Year Sale 2024

Steam China platform announced to host 2024 Lunar New Year Sales Event from 2AM Feb.7 to 2AM Feb.16 (GMT+8) and provide a special offer event and plenty of new games for global gamers who can resonate with the joy of games! Gamers from all over the world could come to the 2024 Lunar New Year...

store.steampowered.com

 

[Schmendrick]

I´m all for it. A giant market with zero tolerance for the agenda driven garbage a lot of western devs have been churning out for a while.
Even Japan has started to get influenced by this crap so we definitely need a new conservative player who simply doesn´t give a fuck, maybe that can be China.

 

[Felessan]

Yeah, sure. But Japan has always had nationally and internationally successful high-profile games that weren't anime JRPGs, even going way back into the 80s. Considering China has like 10 times the population of Japan there's got to be big studios out there working on something other than mobile slop and third person action RPGs. Are they not interested in selling their games internationally, or do Western publishers and platforms just refuse to give them the time of day?

Japan used to publish games in the west 2-3 years later and less than half games were actually translated. Until Japan moved predominantly to gaas and most "japanese" games are made straight for international market now
And China stuff is even more close - they have so huge internal market (that even more unique and exotic compared to Japan) so they just didn't really care
It's probably huge success of their gaas games that spur them to grab some of the foreign market share of SP games, and games that emphasize their culture spearhead this motion.
There also some non-action-rpg games coming, just wuxia themed are most eye-catching

 

[SmokedMeat]

I´m all for it. A giant market with zero tolerance for the agenda driven garbage a lot of western devs have been churning out for a while.
Even Japan has started to get influenced by this crap so we definitely need a new conservative player who simply doesn´t give a fuck, maybe that can be China.

You trying to raise your social credit score?

 

[ThisIsMyDog]

I´m all for it. A giant market with zero tolerance for the agenda driven garbage a lot of western devs have been churning out for a while.
Even Japan has started to get influenced by this crap so we definitely need a new conservative player who simply doesn´t give a fuck, maybe that can be China.

Imagine all that games that could come from China if only they weren't fucking authoritarian communist state with devs needed to be careful to not insult red fuckers.

 

[Diddy X]

"I wish for wokism to end!"

 

[Midn1ght]

Imagine all that games that could come from China if only they weren't fucking authoritarian communist state with devs needed to be careful to not insult red fuckers.

10/10, can't wait to get the Chinese fat lesbian simulators we all deserve.

Why don't they learn from our inclusive, beautiful and peaceful western society seriously...

 

[Three]

I´m all for it. A giant market with zero tolerance for the agenda driven garbage a lot of western devs have been churning out for a while.
Even Japan has started to get influenced by this crap so we definitely need a new conservative player who simply doesn´t give a fuck, maybe that can be China.

Wasn’t we complaining about censorship in R6S and other games like Blizzard's games because of China not too long ago?

I wish people would stop complaining about this stuff honestly.

 

[violence]

All games that feature bones will be removed from steam in order to comply with China’s laws.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Less DEI games I guess is coming

 

[crackajack]

Less DEI games I guess is coming

Games made for or from chinese will add something to the variety overall, but also have in some cases their own agenda woven in.

 

[PendekarRajawali]

If that means the end of wokeness, I’m in.

 

[JCK75]

That's come a long way.. it used to be blocked in China, my brother in law was a big PC gamer in China and had to use a VPN back around 2007ish.

 

[GreenAlien]

What surprises me is that so many chinese players have a decent enough computer to run this game.. Don't tell me graphic cards are so expensive now because china is buying them in bulk