Finding the right video game in the right language has become substantially more difficult for expats due to regulations early this year.

 

The Chinese market for video game consoles and games keeps getting more complicated. The video game industry took another hit last March when e-commence platform Taobao’s parent company Alibaba decided to ban online retailers to sell foreign goods like comics, books, and video games even if they were government-approved products, leaving the selling exclusively to offline retailers and app stores.

 

In the last 17 years, the relationship between console and state has been “complicated” with a 15 year long prohibition until 2015, Video game consoles were banned in China with the reason of it having content not suitable for an impressionable audience, especially if they didn’t depict historical facts as China would want it. This made those game-starved Chinese players to focus their attention and resources on PC and mobile gaming. Interesting enough said games usually had the same level of violence as the console ones, more often than not they were the same titles but on different platforms.

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I interviewed Sean Lee Baker, an expat living in Beijing for the last 6 years, he is a casual gamer currently plays on a Ps4 and Psv. He shares his experience as a console gamer in Beijing “Experience has been good generally speaking. Games are easy to get and not too expensive. The only issue is the internet. Multiplayer isn't always great. “ This is clearly a major issue for console owners, the need of a VPN to fully operate has made the products less appealing for many potential consumers, especially now that many games focus most of their content on online play modes. Then he added “ Official consoles only have a small selection of games approved by the government. Everything else is on the grey market. “ Alluding to the fact that China has released a few official games, but these were censored with some of its content completely removed.

 

Even during the ban, there was a presence of Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4 in a grey market for video games, it consisted of imported game consoles from Hongkong and Japan. Chinese retailers would import such items and sell them to the Chinese customers looking for a different gaming experience, of course, there was not much of a console gaming culture back then, and The Great Firewall of China made it impossible for players to use the consoles at full potential, especially Xbox One which major selling point is the home entertainment system that it offers.

 

 

In Beijing there are two main locations to buy video-games: Zhongguancun and Guloudajie, I went and asked about the place of origin of the video games imported to three different vendors. One of the three vendors declined to answer any question I asked stating: “I do not want to give information regarding the business,” the other two responded that their inventory came straight from Hong Kong, most of the games in Hong Kong come out in two versions, Chinese or English. Sadly for foreigners, most of the time the ones imported are the Chinese versions. An alternative to buying from this places is buying on Taobao, but due to the regulations the industry suffered, it would take about a month to get your game from Hong Kong. And lastly, there is always the online store of each console, these are region based, most Chinese gamers use the Hong Kong store for obvious reasons.

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For all the expats going to live in Beijing remember to get a VPN for your console so you can enjoy all the features of your device, and check the language before purchasing any game on Taobao.

 

For more information keep following GogoUli, and game away.