China's Plan to Clone the Entire Gaming Industry
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 มิ.ย. 2024
- East, North, West, South - we all do it. Clone, copy, imitate, plagiarize, steal. It's as old as time. But where do we draw the line between being inspired and just copying? Learn more about China's strategic approach to cloning games - and how it's reshaping the industry...
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Written & Produced by Belinda Ercan
Editing and Strategic Direction by n8wealth.com
#gaming #china #ripoff #cloning #strategy - เกม
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Hey everyone, quick heads-up on the intro:
The flags and game comparisons you see were added late in the editing process and, honestly, I missed it before we went live.
Totally my oversight there. Just wanted to clear that up and thank you all for pointing it out. We’re all about getting it right, so I appreciate your sharp eyes!
Keep the feedback coming and thanks for sticking with us 🙇♀🙇♀🙇♀
I was going to bring up how you used Saints Row: The Third footage and Saints Row: The Third was created in Illinois and published by a studio in California.
Interesting because it's because of the same China the whole World was playing Famicom. Now Communism and in between Socialism to bridge after the Democracy. I will lose my income but if we are choosing between Space and Living on Earth with Broken Capital and Large Volume without Quality...then it would be great if they do it again but I know that it will be the sub level of PS3.
America lied, it made people around the world to suffer , all the worst in humans happened in Capitalism which is not sustainable anymore. For more than 7 Times it was falling and last time China repaid American debt and became a larger % partner in every Big industry...I will stop here because the rest was written a long time ago by Marx and Engels. It's time for the Revolution. No Spaces Traveling for educational purposes only movies and conspiracies with high level l of uncertain situation and Decay of everything from infrastructure to buildings and bridges and Human spirit. NO more Made in USA . 🧱🔨
this is great, i hope you keep making videos!
The only interesting News Channel 👍
Whats the song in the background that starts at 4:50
Tencent has their thumb in every pie. Ubisoft, Fromsoftware, Techland, Supercell, Riot, Epic, and so many more you may have heard of.
Tencent own's a Part of Fromsoftware?!
Sounds new to me.
@MaxTheAnnoyer224 quick bit of research, they own 16.25% of the shares, but Kadokawa are still over 50% shareholders. Looks like just an investment for Tencent, so it's unlikely to affect what Fromsoftware does.
@@184Switch Good to Hear.
Fact
they are also big shareholders in Discord.
Clones are a tale as old as video games itself. Pong clones and Space Invaders clones was a big thing back then
Yes! This remind me of Switch emulator 😅
I think a large reason you don't know about Chinese originals is because they are rarely localised in English and therefore, completely inaccessible.
I don't know what your background is in journalism, but you make banger videos. I however disagree with the author of that blogpost. Plagiarism is not an art, copying something verbatim is easy. Remixing, building on, and improving existing concepts in a way that resonates with more people than the original, that's an art.
Concur
Agreed
"Picasso had a saying… 'good artists copy; great artists steal' …and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."
-Steve Jobs 1996
Some years ago, i was speaking with an German Artist that lived and learned in China for like 3 Years, she did mention why they always do the plagiarism, well she did say, its their way to embrace Art, like they are literally schooled/indoctrinated, to copy everything that is good and improve on that or something like that, She mentioned, Artists learn to copy everything the master does. They really do not see evil in their doing as we westerners see it. They absolutely see it as a good thing, something to appreciate... Its another world so to speak...
I think what you are describing as an art is literally what the blog poster meant.
At the same time, they can also come up with games like Black Myth: Wukong and Phantom Blade
and wuchang or something
also there are a few good games already. Play guijan 3
Wuchang Fallen feather and Where Winds Meet as well
Watch towards the end of the video, she did bring it up
Fortunately tencent doesn't fully own Game Science
The video is well made and edited, but I have a feeling that you and a lot of people in the comments section have this feeling of China being a monolith where the government and companies work in lockstep together- when this could not be further from the truth. I think psychologically people tend to think this way because of the cultural and societal distance between us, not to mention the rise in anti-China sentiment in the media which tends to make the audience psychologically group people, corporations, and the government together in an us vs them mentality.
As someone who has people I know who live in China, in reality, the government has far less control than you would expect and is often at odds with gaming companies like Tencent. Not to mention that large conglomerates like Tencent also often plagiarize or bully smaller devs in China as well (not dissimilar to companies like Zynga or EA in the west). When it comes to regulation, there are not necessarily set rules like "no blood", "no skeletons", etc., and often games that people think are banned (e.g. HOI4) are actually only sometimes delisted from Steam or other storefronts.
This also has to do with the people as well- of course there will always be super patriotic people, but in reality quite a large part of the population are a lot more critical of the country and government than you'd expect. In general I think it's easy for us in the West to paint China as this very alien, opposite nation where everything is different, but in reality, the relationship between government, corporations, and people are not so different from the West- especially after they had embraced capitalism.
Agreed. I already noticed it on the video about Nutaku, but this person is more interested in creating well-edited narratives that appeal to the viewer's psychological blindspots, than they are in depicting the truth of matters, even if it leads to statements that are only "believable" and which are just based on subjective impressions, minor things, or just wrong facts:
-Hollow Knight and Zelda are American?
-a poll on youtube with 70 likes as some kind of relevant thing to establish the causes as to why China companies copy games?
-"In China, the community is growing tired of it all!" followed by a pseudo steam reviews bombing (4 screenshots) for a game that sits at 56.22% on Steam etc
This is probably because she's more motivated by viewership retention on her videos rather than a genuine interest in gaming, and the reason why she's cooperating with a company specialized in making money on youtube like N8Wealth.
imo she's threading a dangerous line between informative/factual/interesting content, and buzzlike/marketing/out of thin air BS content presented as matter-of-facts that will come bite her back one of these days if she keeps doing it.
But oh well, I have to admit this is still better than 90% of gaming journalism right now... As someone once said: "For every piece of media a journalist puts out there, there is an expert on the subject somewhere in the world who is grinding their teeth in frustration from it."
Yeah there's a lot of cherry picking unrelated things to try string together a narrative and a lot of misinformation.
Chinese CCP government does oversee EVERYTHING ... that is the truth. You cannot release something for large Chinese public consumption unless the government says so.
but in order for your business to grow in China you HAVE to have connections to the CCP. Including gaming companies, in which after growing to a certain size, they're required to have CCP branches within those companies (黨支部), where they can also interfere with certain decisions and operations.
Do you think that with more Chinese citizens becoming aware of the knockoffs and wanting the real thing we are seeing a shift? Like what happened with Blizzard games being temporilary banned and now coming back.
Good question! Yes, absolutely. Chinese consumers in general (the younger ones in particular), are prioritizing quality over let's say affordability. There's a shift towards 'premiumization' - (source => shorturl.at/jJFfs) The Blizzard case is really complex and has more to do with their tight-and-then-relaxing-and-then-tight-again regulations (and international business strategies). The knockoffs will remain, but there's a clear trend for sure towards more, what we woudl call, authenticity.
@@BelindaErcan Hi, the URL you provided is unavailable. Also, I'm pretty sure there is a prioritization of affordability in general, especially among younger generations, as a result of the economic decline.
@@Syuvinya Remove extra ) at the end of the link.
avg chinese prefer chinese stuff whther original or not
@@CrowCZ oh thx
So when Ubisoft copied BoTW, it was an inspiration 😇😇 but when Genshin copied it was a crime! 😡😡
It's okay when the west does it because they insert wokeness
GamersTM double standard lol, just like the Palword accusations saying it's a "bootleg Pokemon made in Chinese" when in reality it's made in Japan lol
oh no. the sinobots are here
I wonder how this would be affected by AI-generated media
If A.i bad, its impossible, why u even think about it? 😊😊😊😊
@@onlyyoucanstopevil9024 "AI" not bad. Only Tool. Results are how its used/abused.
at 0:08
Zelda is a japanese game (not american)
Hollow knight is developed by an australian company.
They are not "american" games.
Yes, very true, and it was an editing oversight on my behalf. Thanks for flagging this.
@@BelindaErcan
I don't think it is an editing oversight. You simply don't know games.
@@user-lk3dv7ug4h @jimmy, the flag could simply be showing the region of the game is playing at that time. That does not mean it is a Japanese or Australian developer. A lot of games (especially older console titles) have different roms for different regions.
@@damientippett2468 nah not gonna buy that
@@damientippett2468what, you’re way off mate.
Belinda is the Senior Product Marketing Manager at Epic Games which is 40% owned by Tencent. Just sayin'.
Ok, so she's unbiased because that didn't stop her from making this video. We need journalists like her.
Belinda and Good Work are the two investigating journalism channel that everyone deserves.
I love how much passion and personality these two show… they’re the lotus in the disgusting mud of “mainstream journalism”
Dyson Sphere Program can be considered an innovative piece made with actual passion from China, even if inspired by factorio. But that's the only one that comes to my mind out of the hundreds of chinese games out there.
Great video as always, you are the best
What you're pointing out is one of the reasons why I'm so happy to harp on the majority-every-other-time China just soullessly steals/copies: It ruins the perception of authentic effort for things like what you mentioned. It's sad, you can taste the authenticity but it's masked by all the BS.
I love DSP ❤ It's one of my most played games on steam.
Well that is the clear difference since it's inspired by other factory games rather than just repainting an original one and passing it off as their own. It's why it's such a damn good game
Came to comments to write about DSP too. There is also Amazing Cultivation Simulator (aka Rimworld's more psychotic Chineese twin) which comes to mind
I can add Will: A Wonderful World, which is a Visual Novel/Adventure game where you play some kind of fate goddess and get prayer-letters from a collection of people that detail a series of events leading up to them pleading to you, which you can then rearrange the order of events of to change their fate (which gets more complicated later - the logic puzzles become pretty hard). Their stories get increasingly interwoven, and completing their most desired outcomes is not always a positive, especially since the depiction of events is biased from their Point of view, which is fine as long as you don't end up getting prayed to by a serial killer with a severely warped and fragmented perception of reality - but that would never happen, right?
Genshin Impact its the biggest example of how China could also create huge trends and now with honkai star rail, they maybe be the exception not the rule.
They're not setting any trend with Star Rail though, there hasn't been a rise in turn based games or games with heavy sci-fi elements.
Its a process remember when Chinese phones are considered cheap knockoff? And now Chinese EV. We are already seeing an increase in original games from China, and its a no brainer that this shift from imitation to innovation will continue. Made in Japan were considered cheap and bad quality and now look at them.
Im def not a fan of copying others work and the Chinese especially in gaming rn is still doing a lot of that , but yeah a lot of Chinese people particularly younger Chinese players are disliking this behavior too
Innovation? Wtf are you talking about lol
China has never did anything for gaming never made a franchise never created anything of value
Now because they take from already trash game like league of legend all of a sudden they are great ? 😂
Riot is trash they cant make good games get that in your skull fraud and so is china
older Chinese don't play video games mate
@@felisasininus1784 depends on how old is considered old. I am still playing in my 50s
@@mankitwong4165 I'm talking Chinese Chinese, people born before the 80s didn't have the luxury to develop the habit.
@@mankitwong4165 Or hobby
This channel is quickly becoming a favorite of mine to frequent. Things I was going to mention incase they were omitted - you mentioned later in the video. Great work and looking forward to more content, hope this channel blows up. We need this sort of education as gamers/consumers!
I lived in China from 2011 to 2019 and the console ban wasn't really a thing. It was just a surface level verbal ban without any teeth to back it up. I remember buying a PS3 and PS3 games during the 'ban' from a store, not from Taobao. Hell, I even bought Diablo 3 at the time and Diablo 3 was supposedly hardcore banned. You just had to call it "Big Pineapple 3" to find it in a search because 'Big Pineapple" in Chinese is pronounced "Da Bolo" which kind of sounds like Diablo. Chinese use all kinds of tricks like this to circumvent bans. I remember when people were asking me how I played on Steam because Steam was banned in China but again, never banned.
Stop spreading truths.
Let the rest of the west be ignorant and feel good about themselves.
True! Seeing how other commenters correctly pointed out that she falsely portrayed Zelda as a US game (it's Japanese), and falsely stated Saints Row being a Chinese game and a clone of GTA (which is also false)... She failed at basic research, and doesn't know anything about those games she mentioned, lmao. Check her reply to SVPortfolio's comment where she admits this, and then kinda edited it out later, but many more such outright lies persist in her entire video, lmao.
The fastest way to clone another company's tech is just to buy that company up outright. That's why Chinese automaker, Geely Cars, bought Volvo.
yep, that's why companies buyout each other, for the tech, like when microsoft bought out nokia for their patents etc.
Until anti-trust/monopoly laws kick in lol.
Same reason why the US gov went after Toshiba and Alstom, for their tech/patents.
Same reason why the US tried to go after Huawei, and now TikTok.
This channel is so underrated. I wish more people will notice you soon enough! Such an amazing work!
I wonder why she never used word censorship while describing heavy government censorship.
I wonder why.
Let’s see how Black Myth: Wukong performs. It seems competitive in both artistic quality and creativity.
It’s funny how China’s tech industry in the ’80s and ’90s was synonymous with knock-off clone products, and now it is able to push innovation.
The lack of innovation and the amount of copying was mainly caused by to lack of economic development back then. When the developers are poor and can't make a living, they end up just copying designs to make quick money. The West could do innovation then because Western devs had more resources, talent, and investments. The early days of Chinese dev are mostly purely profit-driven, they are products, not art. But over the years, as China developed over time, now devs have equal if not more resources to develop games, often with the support of the government. So you now see a surge of innovation. The video starts to go pretty anti-China through the second half of the video. You can speak facts, but adding creepy music to make things sound scary is a bit over the top.
From their perspective, this trend of cloning is really just a method China uses to protect its gaming industry. By creating regulations, the government is preventing Western gaming companies from taking root in China. Doing so has a huge impact on the development and control of the industry. Because if you let all the Western gaming companies in the early days, you basically give them a monopoly, because there is no way Chinese dev could compete then. To them, the process of copying is really a way for Chinese devs to learn and catch up to Western devs, while the market regulation keeps them alive so that they can grow slowly. (Of course, ignoring intellectual property and blatant copy is bad, but I'm speaking from their perspective here.） Also, it's not like Chinese people can't play these regulated Western games. You can buy or play games like GTA or other censored games pretty easily then, as well as buy gaming consoles, even when it was banned. However back then getting a real console was outside of what most average players could afford, this is why you have far more PC and mobile players in China than console players. The regulation is not really trying to stop players, it is more so a protection policy for the market. And when you look at the present day. After 20 years of protection and development, the Chinese game industry is finally starting to mature and compete with the West. And it will only get better as time goes on because there is government support for this. From a social engineering perspective, this is also a good move, since art has huge cultural impacts. If China didn't protect the market, you would see the market filled with Western perspectives, thus conflicting with the different developmental philosophies of the culture that they have. Actually, there is currently a government effort to stop purely profit-driven gaming companies like Tencent from making bad games. They recognize the artistic and cultural value of games and are supporting and pushing big companies to change their ways. And they can do this because they hold the power of whether the game can pass regulation or not, so they can pick only high-quality games to pass and kill all the bad games. (Just for official China release tho, but a lot of Chinese players don't even play games in Chinese official servers or through official channels to bypass censorship.)
There are also a difference between clone and inspired by that this person dont get. BotW and Genshin have too many differences to be called a clone. Different worlds, story and game mechanics. Hearthstone and Sleeping Dragon however is so similar that the later game lost a lawsuit to the former. Thats a clone.
m.th-cam.com/users/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=Legend+of+Crouching+Dragon this copy was way too blatant.
Genshin 1.0 is genuinely BoTW but with elements, it took Hoyo the billions they made to make the game fully unique in later versions
@@thegamerfe8751 nah, even 1.0 was already differentiating itself, thanks to combat system alone with elemental system plus a lot of other small things. The only thing that is similar is traversal, and even then not always
@@thegamerfe8751 you think the game started as BotW clone? miHoYo started developing Genshin in 2016 as a Honkai Impact spinoff, BotW came out in 2017.
If I can make a laundry list 2 pages long about the similarities between the 2 then it’s a blatant rip-off. The only people defending it are diehard fans in denial. And the sad part is it’s not just blatantly ripping off one game. It’s honestly sad
Here in the Philippines, Mobile Legends is VERY huge. I've also played it for a couple of months during Covid, and I can see why people enjoy it. (I've played League of Legends since 2012). It's a bit frustrating that Mobile Legends receives more support in the competitive scene than Wild Rift (Mobile version of League of Legends), but I can understand as to why it's more popular than Riot's mobile game.
Really great video, you earned my subscription!
my game "square bird" had over 100 million downloads, after one years, an taiwan company replicate it and they also get similar downloads. crazy
this one? www.crazygames.com/game/square-bird
You're indian you probably stole the game yourself from the taiwanese company pjjt 😂
The western “Karen” journalism does a lot to accidentally market Chinese games as well. Black Myth Wukong ended up on a lot of people’s wishlist when games journos started trashing it.
Saints Row is American, not Chinese. Also it’s literally a parody of GTA, not simply a clone. And GTA is British, not American, but you have an American flag on it for some reason.
Wasn't she just saying how games take inspiration on others when she mentioned Saints Row?
Yes, the Chinese flag on SR was an editing mistake on my behalf.
@@BelindaErcan I like that you acknowledge the mistake ❤
@@BelindaErcanGTA explanation: Rockstar has a British subsidiary that’s fascinated by American culture, that’s who makes GTA, not the main American branch.
@@DissociatedWomenIncorporated😂 mistake in a video about comparing china as on one side of argument
Huh how come you didn't mention genshin impact at all? Or does it not happen to fit your narrative so you didn't mention it when you were talking about the top games played around the world?
14:30 oh wait you did mention it, so I guess you didn't know Genshin Impact is a Chinese made and operated game?
Yeah it was strange to me how it wasn't mentioned more, sure genshin was heavily inspired by botw but it's grown to be something very distinct and unique on its own. I did feel something off with the video
@@MrKasenom just like how botw copied Skyrim since they're both rpgs right? 🙄
They need to maintain the western agenda of course. They should try asking SEA, totally different opinion on Chinese games.
She also never used the word "censorship" in her entire video, only "cultural adaptation", while describing heavy government censorship and inviligation of citizens.
That is not an accident.
There's also the numerous 'mistakes' that she has had to admit to throughout this comment section.
I have to point out the first couple chinese single player games you pointed out(Monoply etc) are made by Taiwan companies. They hardly have any relationship with what's on in mainland China. The most copy paste period is when browser and mobile games were booming. It was a crazy gold rush.
It's wild that you're a small youtuber with this kind of research and quality. I hope you stick with it, this is some of the best gaming coverage I've seen.
The channel was created in October 2023, it's quite new and will grow, no doubt
China's motto is create fast, test, scale, if fails, scrap.
It is prevalent to react directly to trends and data.
Speed is the essence.
Western game companies especially fails in creating fast because it always uses consultants that trying to predict trends and data.
Lots of western game companies had layoffs this year because just that, too slow to react/decide on risks.
Are you chinese?
No they failed cause they are so focused on DEI instead of good games
@@tigeruntamed6036 ^ yep, thats where i mentioned the "consultants trying to predict trends and data" - always have an injection of DEI within the process
@@tigeruntamed6036 I'm confused, are you just blaming some random company for all the wrong things in the game industry instead of looking at things at critical value?
@@Moji55a no im blaming DEI
I’m a player I just want play good game. I don’t need you to teach me what I should play.
Would love to see what our game industry would look like without Blackrock influence.
i honestly think that in 2 videos, you are already my favorite way to hear about gaming news/essays
Such a great channel, this will be a 1+ million sub soon, surely
Intellectual work is a broad area to discuss where many countries try to balance the incentive of spending significant time in intellectual endeavours in terms of risk relative to potential reward. There might be an argument about the greater good and the tweaking of some intellectual property / patents related to engineering, medicine and technology although the argument with regard to artistic related endeavours is often harder to quantify and argue for tweaking/relaxation (there's always an ongoing argument about how similar a particular piece of artistic work can be to another before it is considered too similar such that it's own artistic merit and monetization is brought into question).
Is it possible in the long run this will have a positive effect on the gaming industry from an eventual transition away from cloning to genuine development or are we staring down a future where cloning spreads or is allowed to prosper outside of China and original content becomes a thing of past due to commercial unviability?
This is a weird take to hear, as a lot of truly original games are coming from China lately.
Of coures copy-stealing games does sound like something the CCP would encourage. It's just an interesting contrast to see these creative games come out of China, and also the blatant copies.
I followed Dyson Sphere Program since its release, and not only the game is excellent both mechanically and technically, but the support for it was also great.
Amazing Cultivation Simulator is another gem that on the surface might look like chinese Rimworld, but it's something completely different.
A lot of other, less notable, chinese games just feel very different from what we're used to, and I think that's great.
The monopoly "knockoff" isn't really a knockoff tho, it adds enough elements, gameplays to be very different and much more entertaining, calling it knockoff is like calling Overwatch a Counter-Strike knockoff. And it's made in Taiwan, so is XuanYuan Jian, they are both classic titles made in TAIWAN by TAIWANESE. The company Softstar was originated in Taiwan and later expanded to China. Easy way to spot is that Taiwan uses Traditional Chinese instead of Simplified Chinese.
These information can be found even on wiki, so please if you want to make these type of videos you need to do more research, or consult someone who does..
Also there are heaps more misinformation in the video, your viewers took the time to let you know, so please correct your mistakes.
Black Myth Wukong isn't alone anymore, there is Phantom Blade Zero, Where Winds Meet and Wuchang Fallen Feathers.
Wuchang Fallen Feathers = Sekiro Shadows Die Twice
your point at 14:00 is HUGE - How many US gamers are using Tencent products vs users of tiktok???
Tencent, Netease.
they are not game company,they are game manufacturer. what they want is profit,
never the good game.
Nothing like chaotic. China has one rule, never allow capitalism to become the ruler of China as America has made the mistake of allowing.
That's funny
Biden and Trump is example. Both are bad@@cozy6308
The focus used to be making video games for passion and fun. But now it's become profit first over anything else. Even as far as copying someone else's work to make money.
All see , free to pay Western games and pay to win like old Chinese games.
Old Western games are: "pay to play"
Also, all Western AAA games are big and empty, like Korean MMOs
With massive items like Japanese RPG.
The West cloned every Asian concept of gaming
Paladins was in development before overwatch, hi res didn't take blizzards idea. I thought this was pretty common knowledge at this point
The only issue I have with the video was was with the closing remark. While it sounds good, it doesn't make sense if you think about it cause journey to the west is about going to India to speak enlightenment.
I understand that point was that "West" is used today to refer to Europe and North America but it felt abit less researched than the rest of the video which was unfortunate.
Great summary of what's happening in the Chinese video gaming industry tho. I still remember when mobile legends was big around 2017
Might have been a far fetched reference, yes 😅
Also, not trying to diss the lady here, but ... various gamers have commented that the various games discussed/shown are actually not Chinese, but Japanese, etc and even from the US itself. Quite a few things are off here, possibly because the scope is way too wide to be properly researched.
I was put off by the Journey to the West ending too, given that I am a Buddhist, and it is a real story actually of how the monk struggled to make it to India for the scriptures. The monkey god Sun Wukong is actually the personification of Hatred, th e pig god Greed, and the sand monk being the personification of Delusion, the 3 poisons in Buddhism. Journey to the West is culturally the "4 big books" of Song Dynasty, which was almost like the peak of Chinese culture.
@@Chengyuan79 And what does it matter if she's a lady or a dude? I don't care if an article is written by a tentacled Martian in a cave, I only care if it's factual reporting. I don't intend to ever meet the Martian in person, the same as applies to any journalist I ever read in my entire life (and the feeling is surely mutual). So it could be a talking stone statue, or a wind wispering through a secluded valley beneath a full moon.... I would still fact-check and see if it's biased or not.
I missed the thing with the games (my favorite genres are 4X and CRPG, which aren't popular enough to be widely cloned so far). But the biggest issue I have is deliberately omitting the word "censorship" in lieu of "cultural adaptation", "cultural fit", "cultural context". Any more nice euphemisms for nasty things?
@@azradun3903 it doesnt. Dont be so sensitive, dude. 😅
Came from Asmongold's reaction. Very good video!
5:22 Bejeweled is not a clone of diamond mine, they are both made by popcap
Asmondgold sent us. Great videos
Thanks for coming 🫡
Working in the game industry as well, much of this is familiar/true. This is an excellent presentation.
I did not expect to see paladins here, it hit me right in the feels I used to LOVE playing it back in the day
You know what, ever since the China Us trade war, i can see that the companies in the US is not as free as i though, the United States Secretary of Commerce got absolute control of the private companies .
Another winner winner chicken dinner from Belinda! How do you manage 100% rate of compelling insightful videos?!?
hahah thank you! It was a challenge to cram so much into 15 minutes (had to cut 60% of the details.) It's a lot to take in, so glad you liked it.
We need you to keep up your reporting. SO much "feeling" about games and so little reporting in the industry. Because of your fact finding I can actually feel something myself and not just see how others feel from the streaming community.
Thank you!
Dang, you have to be the Internets unofficial Gaming Private Investigator... Well Done! Encore!
Amazing and in-depth video. Thank you for the historical context too, I never knew about the start of chinas gaming industry.
Judging from this, the big driver of cloning for China is that many of these hits in the west cannot be sold in China due to their crazy strict rules. Solution is to make a clone and strip out the parts that would prevent it from passing the Chinese review board. Also most of these clones are not available to purchase in the west and original games aren’t available to purchase in China so there is not much impact on the western companies from what I can see. I see no issue with having Let’s Play Monsters in China instead of Pokémon Go (which is banned).
However, there are games now being sold in the West and frankly, my most looked forward to games this year are Chinese (Phantom Blade 0, Perceiver, Wukong, Infinity Nikki and many others). And yes, they most definitely borrowed from Western ideas, but in these cases they also improved.
I think another issue for western game companies with the games that do come to the US is that many Western games are being bogged down with political correctness taking priority over game quality and a bizarre lack of understanding of who actually plays games in the US all the way into direct hostility against the player base. The Chinese games can fill that void nicely as long as unlike Japanese games, they don’t cave to pressure to “westernize” the games, which basically kills the creativity and ideas that make those games good in the first place. While many western studios are putting out more failures than successes these days and spending billions to do so, smaller leaner and cheaper Chinese game devs are releasing more of the games that games actually wanted and expected from the Western studios. While Western companies struggle to figure out what the heck they are doing, Chinese has great opportunity to pull market share if they can capitalize on filling the gaps the western companies are now leaving.
Wow this video clearly took a lot of effort. Mostly explained the things that I heard as rumors around gaming community and you shined a better light on them I would say. I am a teacher in Asia and my students are obsessed with Chinese clone games like RoV (Realm of Valor: Garena's version of AoV) or Genshin Impact that I always tell them these are cloned from a better game and it's better to experience the real game.
Those original games doesn't exist on mobile, which is the primary way of gaming in China and other developing countries. Try opening your viewpoint outside of rich countries. This is why HoK, MLBB, Genshin Impact, and Honkai: Star Rail made billions. People literally doesn't have access to expensive consoles and full-priced games.
Genshin isn't a clone of anything. People initially thought it was a clone of Breath of the Wild but once it released they were completely proven wrong. Different art style, gacha, relics, character quests, release schedule, no shrines, elemental combat, tons of playable characters, character switching, multiplayer, and more completely set Genshin apart even if some things are mildly inspired.
@@KrimsonKattYT The game is ripoff of Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild.
@@zex992001 the only things game "copied" is stamina (which zelda never created), glider (also isn creation of zelda) and some of the traversal movement - but overall the game is its own thing (and if anything - if genshin is botw clone, then botw is shadow of the colossus clone). the elemental system, the story, the characters, majority of the combat, gearing is its own thing. only morons still stuck with nonsense from before the release of the game say its a clone, when in reality - there is an inspiration, and the devs admit to it (cuz they are literally gamers, DUH), but there's a lot on top of it and its weaved together with QUALITY you cannot see in most games, be it chinese or western slop.
i am in no way saying zelda is bad - but both games have their own identity and space to reside in, and both are made with quality and genshin can show you that IF you actually decide to play it and not bark because "china = bad". And thats not to mention how much mihoyo does for their people via charity.
@@SorarikoMotone The graphics, the sound effects, the gliding, the stamina, the artstyle, what do you want more to be Zelda? I'm not a Nintendo fan or Zelda fan, I'm just a gamer and I played many games in my life. Genshin Impact IS Zelda with added micro-transactions for kids to grab money from them. The whole mix of these with open world is Zelda and Genshin Impact wouldn't exist if Zelda didn't exist. I don't agree with you. If Genshin Impact was trying to be its own thing they could add extra mechanics to their game other than switching characters. Their multiplayer could be way better than just 2 people going around doing daily missions. Genshin is just cheap Zelda.
As always, thanks for an awesome investigative video that covers an often overlooked topic or something we just don't notice. It's a shame that we have this oversaturation of game cloning without a thought to innovating beyond the original. (At least on mobile games that I've noticed anyways.) I hope the next generation of gamers will push back on this cloning, or else we may only get to eat "junk food" games.
Almost everyone I know is super excited for Black Myth Wukong.
I’m excited for that and Phantom Blade 0
wait after its game's success and the game company it's in would fold and become just another game cloner company once Tencent/CCP has full grasp on the company then on. Classic move in China.
@@eijitoh6252 You are absolutely clueless
@@Ash-vv8zg ironic coming from the clueless guy
It's not a matter of knowledge being a matter of "public good" because (insert ancient quote here), therefore things get copied. It's more like that's the way the party has shaped Mainland society over the last few decades. "If you can cheat, then cheat" is basically the unofficial national motto these days.
Add to this the very top-down authority-based lawmaking process, and the very irregular enforcement of regulations, and the heavy restrictions on cultural imports (like "foreign" video games and movies), and then you get what we see happening now.
Yah. The view from the lady is not wrong at all, but is from the lens of the West. China currently just has a culture of money-grabbing after Communist suppression and poverty for decades. Moreover, bribing is just part of the budget. So, you need even more money ... 😅
Its content like this that you hope to find when you're doomscrolling to end said doomscrolling.
Hits the spot with how full circle it is.
Insta-sub tier right here. Appreciate the "way" you're doing your content.
Really like the overall style of this channel ! It has the tone of those end 90's TV documentaries !
Wait if mechanics and ideas aren't protected what's with all the game mechanics that got patented? Like minigames during loading screens, and nemesis system from Mordor series.
by default not protected. hence the patents
@@BelindaErcan thank you
9:11 How come this patent was approved? Copyright on practice mode in a fighting game? It seems so absurd.
this video is on time because this years has a lot of chinese games coming and i am not gonna lie most of them look promising, i was surprised to learn that more than half of the games that were shown in playstation state of play were chinese games too.
Promising ? Yeah if you have 0 standards
The CCP had to step in and do something about these studio because of how trash the games were china is garbage 😂
I've been to that dumpling place downtown!
You're the most underrated TH-cam gaming news channel ever. Literally
Did not expect to see a tokaku cameo in this video lol
The new genre that spawned 2023(damn, the Chinese are good at this!) was the bullet heaven genre.
Well, it *took hold* in 2023 at least.
Great video! This channel deserves way more subs!
Awesome vid. Subbed!
if they can make em without aesthetic microtransactions, live service model, extra paid DLCs, lootboxes and paid seasons, then I M IN!
It's funny that I got Nintendo clone version when I was a kid, keep up the good work.
as much as Tencent do the usual thing, Moontoon already corrupted the minds of Southeast Asians as everyone thinks that Riot Games and Tencent had copied their game 😢
I see a lot of people Mentioning Wuchang as not a clone but if you haven’t played Sekiro you wouldn’t notice that it is Sekiro but Chinese with a female protagonist.
Sekiro isn't the first tho. Anyways, when a genre is popular, it gets copied, like how many rts games copy reach other, or fps, or souls like games, or diablo like, or dynasty warrior like, or resident evil like etc etc. P.S, it only looks like a clone because many games run on unreal engine now, that and also because there are less game engine choices out there these days.
@@karthur3421 Sekiro isnt the first what? SOULS like? Sure but mechanics wise it is its own thing. I saw Wuchang using the same exact animations that Sekiro uses particularly parrying and deflecting.
Are people barely realizing this. The cloning has been annoying to gamers. The fact that chinese tech giants own gaming companies in the U.S worries the government. They have been too busy with tik tok that they don't realize its been in gaming for years. I think theres nothing wrong in making an original IP like wukong and making it a great game. The cloning and owning of U.S gaming companies to push an agenda on the other hand is obviously wrong but theres a clear lack of intellectual property law.
Underrated channel, great video!
great video! I just played Arena Breakout: Infinite - an extraction shooter made by a subsidiary of Tencent that does exactly what you describe in the video. They took the opportunity of growing interest in the genre, and unrest at Tarkov's treatment of their playerbase to push their beta to market. The game plays nearly identical but the main difference in the huge amount of quality of lfie improvements that I am sure they did to capture that target audience.
PS: I wonder if content creators can use that same strategy China uses to notice gaming trends, but instead of to copy, to know what to cover for videos.
thanks for sharing your Arena Breakout experience. Had researched the Tarkov case but cut it from the script. So glad you're sharing it here :)
(And good point about content creators. I guess it could apply to many things in business)
Wow people are copying games... BREAKING NEWS!!!TH-cam is getting dumber every second.
1:56 just wanna say that filming your child crying for whatever reason and posting it on social media for other people's entertainment is CHILD Abuse. It's not funny. And I'm so blessed to be born in the 90s when nobody had smartphones.
Belinda Ercan upload! 🎉🎉🎉
It's so rare to find good game journalists these days. You're my #1 ❤
Yup, game journalists are just pushing woke propaganda nowadays.
This is why I only buy singleplayer games these days. Always online is instant turn off.
it's kinda funny how much they clone games when they bitch about the citizens of china playing games...and then there's China's new Tencent new ai, Tooncrafter...There's also the Golden Boy stigma...you know, be the best at everything, even if it involves cheating.
Because they don't want to create iPad kids that play video games all day. If you are a regular adult, which is going to be most of the gaming demographic, there's nothing stopping you.
@@victorchen9170 is that so? They don't care how much a citizen plays video games for huh?
@@kukukachu Yeah? My cousin for example games all the time. While I lived there, I played genshin every single day. Not a problem.
@@victorchen9170 So wait, if they don't care about the worker bees of society playing games however long they want, why do they care about how much the kids play?
ah yes, lets just mention genshin but not honkai impact, or azur lane, or snowbreak, or arknights, or many other games that are their own thing compared to western games.
while its true that china started by copying games, the chinese gaming industry is slowly starting to make original games, while the west is failing miserably with "diversity and inclusion" garbage full of corporate propaganda.
so what about Honkai impact? clone of a clone. The dev is also Chinese. Or do you call that more original than Genshin Impact? The name already is an clone XD
Did she really just say China made saints row
An editing mistake on my behalf.
Cloning or Modding!???? Like you say and bring up in the history timeline.... Gaming was outlawed until they could figure out if it was "woke" "Western" propaganda so hence Chinese modding community made their own "clones" these were obviously never meant to be made for the outside of China market! Its the same with Russia with Nintendo i think..... thats why Jackie keyboard! Chinese had to be creative in modding, hence you know now we have retro handhelds! they werent meant to be sold for the West really YET here we are plenty of people buying them and its become a whole genre! Yes Chinese cloning matched Doom clones thats where it all came from
Another great video - love the channel!❤
Belinda with another banger vid les goo
man these videos are so good hope u get millions on them
to me it doesnt matter if a western or eastern company owns the game.
Its not like any of them have my best interest in mind. They both just want my money.
1:22 Jackie chan and a keyboard?! Sing me up!
Fantastic dissection of the industry and the direction it might be headed. Honestly I'm so glad eyes are opening up more to what's happening.
BUT 6:18 I wish you'd have given Tokaku a wee name drop or something considering you gave her an introduction is all!
Wow your video is incredibly well written and informative. The amount of research and data you must of done. I wonder with AI what sort of strategy China will implement to further their dominance the gaming industry.
surprisingly realistic view and not ideological or pandering to people's prejudices. although that is probably also limiting views.
Pokemon GO uses OpenStreetMap, not google maps. Also Tencent owns Riot Games so they can clone as much as they want from them. Sucks to be a sellout to China I guess.
Damn you for making me crave dumplings! Excellent video too, format and information was extremely concise and professional. Can't wait for more
Honor of Kings was released earlier than Mobile Legends and they're both Chinese....Do your home work
she never said Mobile Legend, look at that slightly transparent LoL logo
Cloning this comment for maximum profit potential.