Happenings Tencent and NetEase withdrawing investments in Japanese gaming

[Ebicentre]

An article from Bloomberg (archive here) reports that Chinese mega companies Tencent and NetEase are rethinking their investment strategies in the Japanese gaming industry.​

The report states that Tencent and NetEase were hoping their investments would create popular games to bring back to the Chinese market - but conflicts with Japanese I.P. holders and studios, alongside disagreements with the scope (and subsequent financial success) of each project, caused them to retreat and recommit to their own home markets. The success of Black Myth: Wukong also seems to be a contributing factor in Tencent and NetEase's desire to develop more Chinese games, instead.

NetEase recently made the decision to shut down their Japan-based Ouka Studio, whose team was responsible for Square-Enix's Visions of Mana (which just released today).

In previous related news, Tencent 'donated' a capital investment to Platinum Games (archive) in 2020. We can now conclude this was done to bring Platinum's titles into the Chinese market.

 

[Narmy]

Japanese studios should belong to Japan, not China or the west. Japan needs to learn to stop selling out, their industry was at its peak when they were making purely Japanese games mainly for a Japanese audience.

 

[JX475]

As someone who is a JP Only, I never understood why China would even make a bet with having Japanese talents to sell their games in China, when the reality is they just needed to cater to their own market and it would sell really well. Every country should focus on it's domestic market first and make what they like rather than constantly trying to think they can hire big names and Outsource essentially try to sell something foreign into their own culture as a whole. It always ends up looking artificial and feeling out of place. When you make what you like and appeal to your own country and audience, suddenly it can be highly successful at home without needing to rely on overseas.

For Japanese Developers and Japanese talents in Video Games, I truly do think the whole experiment of trying to appeal wholly to China and to the West is a gigantic failure and is at risk of losing everything which I have sounded the alarm on SNS for years. Allowing games to be censored, allowing themselves to sell their soul on the market for cheap, allowing the Western Branch power and to censor and make any calls, and to translate terrible dialog, has diminished the market share and perception of Japanese Companies to losing their own market at home, in Asia, and over here who know that they are far better than what they have been performing this last decade. They need to get it together, I know they can do it. But this should be a wakeup call when China is realizing that they can make games for their own market and it can sell there, without needing Japan, while Japan has forgotten that it needs to do the same thing as well outside of Indies and AA's of course.

 

[PhantomXero1x]

Japan should be for Japan only, not for western gaijins or commies.

 

[anru]

Every country should focus on it's domestic market first and make what they like rather than constantly trying to think they can hire big names and Outsource essentially try to sell something foreign into their own culture as a whole.

Every country has their own uniqueness when it comes to entertainment. If they invest in the entertainment of their country and supply it to their own countrymen then not only will it be profitable but it also builds a reputation of their cultural heritage overseas.

The truth of the matter is that quality content which human beings have poured their heart and soul into creating will be valued all throughout the globe, especially if it's created for a specific audience in mind.

Artworks of various types are valuable and limited resources. When those resources are put through collaborative projects they form valuable goods and services. Those goods and services sold to the customer willing to pay the highest price is what creates economies of scale centered towards entertainment. This is how societies are culturally enriched and develops their own sense of identity.