I returned to Shanghai last week to attend ChinaJoy, a four-day event formally known as the China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference (中国国际数码互动娱乐展览会). First held in 2004, ChinaJoy has become the premier gaming and digital entertainment industry event held in China, the world’s second-largest gaming market with estimated 2022 revenues of USD 44 billion. As well as a chance for industry insiders to meet and do business, it has become an extremely important opportunity for the industry to excite fans with new launches and products.

The event was held at the Shanghai International Exhibition, a series of some three dozen cavernous exhibition halls. A friend who has been many times before offered to show me around, so I followed his lead. We joined the queue at 09:30, half an hour before the gates opened, and there were already thousands of people jostling to get in. We were there on Friday, a workday, so I can only imagine how busy it got over the weekend.

Most people in the crowd were in their late teens and early twenties, and there was a good mix of males and females. Lots of people came dressed up to ‘Cosplay’ their favourite video game or anime character. ChinaJoy is more than just marketing: it’s a cultural event. People come to see and be seen, to connect with their communities, and simply to partake in this celebration of the fantasy worlds they love.

Let me explain: gaming in China is intimately fused with ACG (an acronym for Animation, Comics and Gaming), the youth sub-culture which has blossomed in China over the last decade. Inspired by Japanese manga culture, ACG is a two-dimensional world (二次元) which young people can call their own, free from a real-world dominated by adults, rules and the grind of study and work. It’s a safe environment in which to escape, to express themselves creatively and to form friendships which transcend physical boundaries.

Many of the most popular games in recent years have been inspired by ACG design and storytelling. In turn, they can become part of the canon, creating worlds and characters with whom fans build relationships as close as they might to any human celebrities. Bilibili, the video platform, has emerged as the premier channel for the propagation of this culture, boasting an impressive 93.7 million daily active users and 315.2 million monthly active users as of Q1 2023. Its viewers spent an average of 96 minutes per day on the site!

The exhibition halls were grouped into several themes: game developers, like Tencent, Netease, Mihoyo, Playstation, Bandai Namco and Dena; gaming hardware manufacturers, like AMD, Qualcomm and Razer; eSports; books and collectables; and everyday services like Meituan, Jingdong and Eleme (because gamers get hungry during all-night sessions). We made our way through quickly: my friend the veteran was more interested in seeing where the crowds were than in seeing anything specific.

By that measure, the three-hour queue to see Netease’s upcoming releases suggests good things to come (we did not wait to see ourselves). Netease seems particularly adept at embracing ACG, as you can see from the legion of fans crowding to photograph Cosplayers dressed as characters from Netease games like Onmyoji and Identity V. Tencent had a lively exhibition too, showcasing upcoming releases like the Chinese editions of Valorant and Lost Ark. But the line there had already reached capacity too, so we did not get to a closer look either.

My friend told me this was the first year EV manufacturers attended Chinajoy. Nio had an ET5t compact on display to showcase its in-car entertainment station, just another feature which can be easily plugged into its self-developed in-car software. The salesman promoting the car joked that it would be a great place to find some quiet time to play games. Guangzhou Auto used a young male celebrity to draw a crowd to a Toyota EV or Hybrid - I couldn’t get close enough to see!

Notably, besides Playstation, Bandai Namco and Dena, I did not see any foreign game developers. Is that a sign of the chill which has fallen over the market since the introduction of the Personal Information Protection Law which severely restricts sharing player data outside of China? Or the difficulty securing approval to launch and monetise new games? There were very few small local developers exhibiting either, perhaps reflecting budget crunches following 2022.

This was an exciting event to attend. But it also shows how mature and mainstream gaming has become in China. Compared with the figures cited in this 2010 article from The Economist, revenue and players have increased by seven and ten times, respectively. I worry that China’s gaming market is saturated and becoming a red ocean. Perhaps the real trend to watch now is therefore the success of Chinese developers away from their home turf at overseas gaming conventions like Comic-Con, E3 and the Tokyo Game Show.

PS: I just wanted to add, this was my second overnight trip to mainland China since January 2020. I can’t stress enough how normal it already feels to travel there again. I hope this is true for everyone and that more connection leads to better understanding.