With blackmyth wukong, PC gaming is probably pretty prevalent. What about online gaming? Any problems playing online games connecting to the rest of the world? Monster hunter for example. How about consoles? Is PS5 available and able to connect outside? I think I’ve seen Chinese username on helldivers2 but pretty rare.
Genshin Impact
原神，启动！
Mobile games are obviously huge so I’m gonna skip over that.
Most online game servers are not banned by the GFW but due to the metering of foreign internet exit points, playing on foreign servers would have far higher latencies. It is common to use gaming VPNs (called game “accelerators” or 加速器) to get a better experience.
Online games that want to officially run a state-approved revenue service in China must obtain a permit number (very hard to get), conform to local standards (tons of hoops to jump through, especially censorship as China does not have a rating system), and host a server domestically. Each update would also require the scruitiny of the government so updates often lag behind the international version (see: World of Tanks) and cannot play with them. Due to this disconnect, sometimes the domestic publisher are given freedom by the original studio to publish essentially a different version of the game, the most famous examples are probably Crossfire and Minecraft Chinese Edition. There’s nothing stopping gamers from playing the original game - in fact this is how Warthunder’s Chinese server died. The advantage of low latency couldn’t save it as players would rather endure a higher ping to get the latest updates.
Consoles and Steam store has a specific China region/version that might have some games missing, but there’s nothing stopping you from buying an unlocked Nintendo Switch from Hong Kong, for example. Console gamers are the absolute minority in China though, partially because of a 15-year long ban.
You’ll need accelerator/VPN to have stable connection to non-mainland China servers. Besides that nothing different from the rest of the world.
most people don’t play online mmo type of games that aren’t Chinese server.
they don’t want to communicate in English or other languages, and don’t want to read the game text without translation. Also, high ping to play on SEA or other servers.
There are some odd balls but it’s pretty niche. Some are also tied to the hardware being sold in China to be Chinese only versions (like switch had a Chinese version that fked everyone over when the publisher closed? The people who bought the international version were unaffected? Not a switch fan so idk the whole story). If you own a PC it’s not that much different than anyone else.
I’m pretty sure the chain of gaming in China goes something like: Phone > PC > consoles
also. VPN exist.
usernames don’t really tell much of a story as there are tons of overseas Chinese people who can make Chinese usernames.
Almost every games in steam is available in China, except some heavy political one. Console ban wasn’t a thing for decade in China. Most game have their own region and own server, fewer are that’s worldwide or cross-region. Fit all players in the world in a single region/server require tremendous effort and not every company is willing to do that. All consoles are available in China and again not every game created to have the capability to play cross-region. For worldwide support games, you are free to pick whatever regional servers to play with foreigners, nobody stopping you.
Consoles are common and we can buy HK ver if we want to connect outside. It’s common in both local stores and online shops.
As for online PC and mobile games, most gamer prefer chinese server. But I think DOTA2 and CS:go have only global server.
Offline games, such as those from ubisoft and rockstar, are pretty popular here. Steam is unstable in China without VPN but we can purchase and download without problem once the connection is solved
I see lots of Chinese players on War Thunder
Basically everything - unofficially if not officially.
Go to Bilibili or Zhihu to search for your game of choice - you will be surprised.
Lived there for years. Everything basically.
Chinese gaming is dominated by mobile gaming. The most popular game in china is PUBG, whether it be PC or mobile, most people don’t have a PC in their house so games that are available on the computers at PC cafes will be the most popular usually. Any game that they play online that you can also play in the west there will be a Chinese server for. If you see Chinese usernames in helldivers2 they are either foreigners who think the name is funny or Chinese people living overseas.
As for consoles I have no idea.
Thanks, with accelerator, what kind of latency are we looking at?
If someone moves to China with a North American PS5 and games, will it still work?
Could they still use PS+ and download/play games with a VPN?
“heavy political ones”
Literally so much offends the CCP
ANIMAL CROSSING because people had the ability to write signs, and some people used it to write messages against the government.
How do you play Runescape in China?
It’s mostly stability/packet loss improvement. A domestic server would be around 30-90ms while overseas game would be around 200-500ms depending on the server. An accelerator brings it down to around 150-300ms from my experience.
Not sure about these statements. When I used to play Team Fortress 2 without any kind of acceleration in China, Hong Kong and Tokyo servers would run at 30 to 60ms and Singapore servers at around 100ms. It could be the case that tf2 is an outlier or maybe u re playing on some very distant servers.
Yeah the games I play don’t have an Asian server lol