Shanghai, China - Aug 1, 2025 (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Various of visitors, cosplayers, exhibits at 2025 China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference (ChinaJoy)
2. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Xie Fei, president, Century Huatong (starting with shot 1/partially overlaid with shot 3):
"The number of Chinese companies going overseas has been increasing each year. Our game 'Whiteout Survival,' for example, is the world's first snow-themed simulation games. It has been performing pretty well. The number of its overall downloads has reached over 100 million."
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3. Trailer clips of game "Whiteout Survival"
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4. Various of performers, visitors, cosplayers at exhibition
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Wang Wei, general manager, AppsFlyer Greater China (starting with shot 4/partially overlaid with shot 6):
"This is not only for Chinese clients going global. This is actually for the entire gaming industry. One is of course the global economy. So it's basically going down in the past few years. So that's the fundamental reason. It's not only for gaming markets, it's also a negative impact on other markets. And also there's increasing competition within the gaming industry. And the third reason is the apps from other industries like short videos from Tiktok, they are eating up the time of the gaming users. So the users now are spending less time on gaming than previous years."
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6. Various of cosplayers, exhibits
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7. Various of people at exhibition

Chinese game makers are seeking to increase their global market share as they showcase latest products at the ongoing 2025 China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference, or ChinaJoy, in Shanghai.

Asia's largest digital entertainment gala opened in Shanghai on Friday, with over 700 entertainment firms showcasing their most exciting games.

And for some exhibitors, this is not only a show for the domestic players, but for a broader audience across the world.

Shanghai-based Century Huatong is leading Chinese game makers in going abroad. In 2024, overseas business accounted for over half of its revenue.

"The number of Chinese companies going overseas has been increasing each year. Our game 'Whiteout Survival,' for example, is the world's first snow-themed simulation games. It has been performing pretty well. The number of its overall downloads has reached over 100 million," said Xie Fei, president of Century Huatong.

Century Huatong is not the only Chinese game maker with an increasing market share coming from the overseas market. Data from mobile marketing analytics platform AppsFlyer shows that China is the largest game exporter in the world with a market share of over 32 percent.

There is a saying in the gaming industry, "you go abroad, or you quit." Going overseas has become an unavoidable strategy for Chinese game makers. This has also led to the industry becoming unprecedentedly challenging.

AppsFlyer's report shows between the third quarter of 2023 and the second quarter of 2025, overall installations of Chinese games jumped by only one percent, signaling a bottleneck.

"This is not only for Chinese clients going global. This is actually for the entire gaming industry. One is of course the global economy. So it's basically going down in the past few years. So that's the fundamental reason. It's not only for gaming markets, it's also a negative impact on other markets. And also there's increasing competition within the gaming industry. And the third reason is the apps from other industries like short videos from Tiktok, they are eating up the time of the gaming users. So the users now are spending less time on gaming than previous years," said Wang Wei, general manager of AppsFlyer Greater China.

Thus industry insiders believe for Chinese game makers, creating more lightweight games will be the key to win more market share in the future. And they've already started doing so.

Downloads of casual games, for example, have seen a market share of over 40 percent among all game categories.