West of the neon towers of Shanghai’s Pudong district, along the Wusong River that winds through a much quieter part of the city, a few hundred developers are challenging the conventions that define China’s unparalleled $33 billion videogame industry. In a market defined by free-to-play online games, the term ‘indie’ doesn’t mean much to a lot of Chinese gamers.
But that doesn’t stop over 10,000 attendees from gathering on the first floor of the enormous Shanghai Convention and Exhibition Center of International Sourcing to showcase Chinese indie games. Called WePlay Game Expo, this conference is the only one of its kind in China—a haven for a fledgling indie scene whose future depends almost entirely on the regulations of China’s government and, surprisingly, a Seattle-based company: Valve.
Though China has more gamers than anywhere else in the world (roughly 800 million), its industry is also the least diverse. Free-to-play mobile, and PC games—most oozing with pay-to-win schemes and loot boxes—have reigned supreme since online gaming exploded in the mid-2000s. But WePlay Game Expo and the developers who attend it are looking to change that.
It’s like a miniature version of PAX West, the game convention that invades downtown Seattle each August. Though there are a few big-budget, international games (a 2K Games booth sporting the divine visage of Borderlands 3’s iconic Psycho greets me as I walk in), deeper into the swell of the crowd is where the coolest stuff is.
This story is from the April 2020 edition of PC Gamer US Edition.
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This story is from the April 2020 edition of PC Gamer US Edition.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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Special Report- Stacked Deck - Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big.
Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big. Four years later, its successor Inkbound’s launch from Early Access was looking more like Sandwich Big.I’m not just saying that because of the mountain of lamb and eggplants I ate while meeting with developer Shiny Shoe over lunch, to feel out what the aftermath of releasing a game looks like in 2024. I mean, have I thought about that sandwich every day since? Yes. But also, the indie team talked frankly about the struggle of luring Monster Train’s audience on board for its next game.
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