China's Game Industry Sees 11% Growth in Overseas Revenue, AI and "Chinese Wind" Power Games to Go Global

Source: 图虫

Growth of 11%, the game industry has thoroughly warmed up!

At the 2025 China International Digital Entertainment Industry Conference, Zhang Yijun, vice chairman of the Chinese Audio-Video and Publishing Association and director-general of the Game Committee, released a report on the Chinese game industry in January-June 2025. The main benefits came from long-tail product revenue and new product releases in 2024. China's self-developed games saw actual overseas sales revenue of $95.01 billion (approximately RMB 683.41 billion), up 11.07% year-on-year, setting a new high over the past five years.

Times Finance News

In recent years, the global mobile game market has continued to warm up. According to Gamma Data's "2024 Global Mobile Game Market Competitive Report", the global mobile game market size grew by 4.8% year-on-year to RMB 6,355.7 billion, with overseas markets remaining an important field for Chinese game industries.

However, the elimination of genres such as casual and leisure games is a strong area for overseas game companies, which also have a head start. Therefore, many game developers are using innovative play modes and theme innovations to enter the overseas market and achieve certain effects. For example, Tencent (00700.HK), NetEase (NTES; 09999.HK), and Sega Sammy Holdings (002555.SZ) all have subsidiaries that have expanded their business in overseas markets.

AI drives the new era of game globalization

With the rapid development of AI technology, game developers are facing a new opportunity to go global.

According to Wang Chaoping, deputy general manager of Seven Interactive Technology Center, around the self-developed industry model "Qiqi", Seven Interactive has built over 40 AI capabilities, including AI translation technology that enables games to quickly and accurately achieve multilingual localization, helping games enter global markets. Currently, more than 60% of overseas games developed by the company use AI translation, with a success rate of 95%.

Tencent Games vice president Yu Yujun said in an interview that to fully unlock the key role of games in AI development and drive the industry towards innovation, we need to grasp the trend of extending AI capabilities from production to experience, opening up a new era for game globalization.

Cultural export enters the "deep waters"

Today, cultural export has gone beyond simple cultural dissemination and product output, gradually evolving into deeper cultural fusion, market adaptation, and localized operations to achieve cultural exchange.

Last year, a domestic 3A game "Black Myth: Wukong" with deep Chinese cultural connotations went viral globally. This single-player action-adventure game with outstanding graphics, unique Eastern aesthetics, and immersive gameplay won high praise from players.

The game's success not only broke the circle in overseas markets but also triggered a "Chinese Wind Westward Journey" cultural learning fever among global players, sparking a strong interest in Chinese culture abroad.

According to Sun Shoushan, chairman of the Chinese Audio-Video and Publishing Association, games are not just entertainment products but an important cultural ecosystem that combines technology with innovation, is a key scenario for technological innovation applications, and is an important means of transmitting Chinese culture abroad.

This year, cultural export has continued to surge.