CHINA MARKET · FOR INDIE DEVELOPERS
China is not a locale. It is a publishing system.
How independent studios can choose a route, work with partners, handle approval, localize the game, build a community, and prepare for launch in China.
This section starts with PC and Steam. Mobile, console, and formal mainland publishing are separate routes with different requirements.
21 ARTICLES · 10 ORIGINAL · 10 CURATED · 1 LIVING GUIDE
Living guide
We revise this guide when platform rules or market conditions change. The focused articles below cover specific checks and next steps.
China is not a locale. It is a publishing system—and the first useful decision is which part of that system your studio actually needs.
01 · CHOOSE THE ROUTE
Before approaching partners or setting dates, choose between reaching Chinese players through international storefronts and pursuing formal mainland publishing.
A China plan that fits entirely inside the localization budget has probably left distribution, service, support, and data ownership unpriced.
Define what a Chinese player will be able to do before a publisher defines “launching in China” on your behalf.
Replace “get a China license” with the work named by the official guide: applicant, materials, review, correction, and decision.
A public approval list shows which decisions became public. The missing queue makes your own waiting time impossible to calculate from those batches.
02 · APPROVAL & AVAILABILITY
Approval or platform eligibility can make a game available for sale. It does not create demand; the store page and launch still have to do that work.
Approval can open the gate. Positioning, distribution, support, and a working service still have to bring players through it.
The page should show what the game lets a player become before they ever hear your Discord pitch or studio story.
Apple asks for ICP information, a game approval number, supporting documents, and matching entity data in separate places. Build your launch sheet the same way.
When someone says “the China license is handled,” ask which service, which entity, which record, and which platform field they mean.
03 · LOCALIZE TRUST
Test the Chinese name, genre promise, store page, partner responsibilities, and player vocabulary before translating at scale.
Players decide whether they want the role and feeling long before they can judge fifty thousand translated words.
Contacts may open the first door. A visible delivery queue is what gets builds, pages, player issues, and decisions through launch.
A TapTap page needs its own fields, assets, package, review state, and owner. Copying a translated Steam screenshot leaves most of that work undone.
Choosing Simplified Chinese settles the writing system. You still have to choose the audience, terminology, typography, cultural frame, platform, and route.
04 · COMMUNITY OPERATIONS
Start learning how Chinese players describe and misunderstand the game before the launch date is settled.
You can learn how players describe the game before you have a launch date. Tell them clearly when you are listening rather than selling.
Give a Chinese creator or player one idea they can understand, show, and debate immediately. The studio biography can wait.
Count a community task when a player question reaches an owner and returns with an answer, fix, or clear decision. A post alone closes nothing.
Once the server must decide whether an account may enter a session, a play-time rule has become runtime code.
05 · DATA & LAUNCH
Decide who owns each SDK, data path, support queue, moderation task, and patch before the game ships.
Every SDK brings a vendor, data flow, failure mode, disclosure, update queue, and exit path into the build. Price that work before integration.
The first broken entitlement reveals more about the partnership than the launch announcement: who can see it, decide, fix it, and explain it?
A polished privacy policy cannot justify a field your game never needed to collect. Delete that field first.
Count only after you can name the data fields, people, entities, endpoints, and purpose behind every outbound flow.