Chinese game developers are getting better and better.

Before we know it, it’s already late November, and another year is coming to an end.

So far this year, the gaming regulatory authorities have issued licenses for more than 1,400 games, with the total number showing steady growth and remaining at a high level. Upon reviewing the list of licensed titles, Game Tea House noticed many familiar names from the Golden Tea Awards.

Games that have won the Golden Tea Awards, such as *Arknights: End of the World* and *Shadow Blade: Zero*, have all secured their publishing licenses. With everything in place, all that remains is the final polish. Barring any major surprises, these two highly anticipated games are expected to launch officially within the next two years.

"The End" will soon begin a paid beta test

A look back at the games that have won the "Most Anticipated Game" award at the Golden Tea Awards also reflects the evolving trends in China's gaming industry. Step by step, the industry is increasingly focusing on quality and content, establishing a foothold domestically while setting its sights on the global market, and is in the process of forming a comprehensive industrial ecosystem.

01

On the Eve of Industrialization

Back in 2018, following a suspension of game approval numbers and years of explosive growth in the mobile gaming market, the industry’s growth rate plummeted from 41.7% to 15.4%. This sharp slowdown in market growth signaled that the gaming industry was bidding farewell to its golden age and embarking on a new path of development.

The mobile gaming market experienced a sharp decline in growth in 2018

Game Tea House still recalls how, back then, the industry was abuzz with concerns that the gaming population was dwindling and that entertainment formats like short videos were eating into users’ time, leading to a widespread belief that future market growth would be difficult to achieve.

To this day, while the aforementioned practical challenges have not entirely disappeared, they are no longer the most pressing issues and do not hinder the continued growth of the gaming market.

The solutions devised by domestic manufacturers generally involve improving game quality and moving toward industrial-scale production.

Back in 2018, the gaming industry was still riding the tail end of the trend toward cross-media collaborations between movies and games, and the mainstream games on the market were primarily stat-based card games; content-rich titles like *Honkai Impact 3rd* were just beginning to make a name for themselves.

Tencent and NetEase have essentially dominated the domestic market, while emerging companies such as miHoYo, Paper Games, and Lilith are on the verge of a breakthrough.

However, at events like the Unreal Engine’s UOD Conference and Unity’s Unite Conference, Game Teahouse observed that an increasing number of domestic developers were adopting engines such as UE5 and Unity to create ever-larger-scale multiplatform titles. In terms of visual quality and content presentation, these games are increasingly on par with international AAA titles.

Unreal Technology Open House Event

In fact, the list of most anticipated games for the Golden Tea Awards already includes new titles that prioritize narrative, such as *Shining Nikki*, *Pascal's Wager*, and *The Fifth Invention*.

Two years later, miHoYo shattered the industry’s ceiling with its groundbreaking *Genshin Impact*, reshaping the market landscape and sparking a new wave of innovation among game developers.

02

Major projects are being launched one after another, and the industry is experiencing accelerated internal competition.

Following its sensational debut, *Genshin Impact* swept through charts both domestically and internationally, undeniably becoming a phenomenon. In its first month, *Genshin Impact* generated $245 million in global mobile revenue, making it the top-grossing mobile game worldwide that month.

The impact of *Genshin Impact* has deeply resonated with the domestic gaming industry. Coinciding with the rise of the “stay-at-home economy” during the pandemic, this has spurred developers to ramp up production and rush to launch large-scale open-world projects.

During those two years, at industry conferences, everyone talked about open worlds and anime-style aesthetics; failing to mention industrialization was seen as a sign of backwardness.

At that time, ByteDance—which had ambitious plans for the gaming market—was actively expanding its presence, prompting Tencent to make defensive investments. Meanwhile, other domestic companies, unwilling to be left behind, were going all out to recruit distinctive R&D teams.

A massive influx of speculative capital into the gaming industry has given companies the confidence to recruit top talent from all sectors. It has become commonplace for companies to outbid one another, resulting in starting salaries doubling or even tripling. Together, game developers and investors fueled the previous wave of massive investment.

The list of the most anticipated games for the Golden Tea Awards also reflects shifting industry trends: unless backed by a well-known IP, few data-driven MMOs are winning awards, while an increasing number of content-rich games are taking home prizes.

A number of games that cater to the tastes of young players, including *Arknights 2: Exile*, *Warm Snow*, and *Arknights: End of the World*, have been named the "Most Anticipated Games" at the Golden Tea Awards."Arknights 2: Exile" has performed exceptionally well overseas, topping the sales charts in South Korea; "Warm Snow" has long surpassed 3 million copies in total sales and was once the best-selling domestic game; and after several rounds of optimization, "Arknights: Endland" should bring players a pleasant surprise next year.

03

Take a break and start anew

The massive influx of investment inevitably led to massive bubbles, and game developers soon realized that their initial expectations had been overly optimistic; they had underestimated the difficulty of developing large-scale games and overlooked the risks in the market.

Faced with changes in the external environment, game developers have had no choice but to make tough decisions, canceling a large number of projects that failed to meet expectations and implementing a strategic retrenchment.

However, cost-cutting and efficiency improvements do not mean standing still. Among the seeds sown during the industry’s previous expansion phase, the past two years have still yielded outstanding titles such as *Roar of the Tide*, *Honkai: Star Rail*, *Love and the Deep*, *Sixteen Sounds of Yan Yun*, and *Black Myth: Wukong*.

These games have not only been hugely successful in the domestic market but are also very popular overseas, making them true global benchmarks in the gaming industry.

After weathering an expansion bubble and a subsequent market correction, China’s gaming industry has consolidated and is now poised for a fresh start. So far this year, domestic developers have unveiled a new wave of next-generation games. These include titles like *Blue Star: Travel Ballad* and *Imo*, which blend monster-catching mechanics into vast 3D open worlds; *Infinite* and *Varsapura*, which explore urban open-world settings; as well as a host of visually stunning AAA single-player games that push the boundaries of gameplay…

Overall, this new generation of games features a wide variety of genres and business models, with even more impressive visuals, and continues to push the boundaries of gaming.

In Closing

This year, the Golden Tea Awards will once again feature the "Most Anticipated Game" category, aimed at identifying new titles that exemplify the quality of games currently in development and demonstrate significant market potential. Both the industry and players are calling for innovative new games that can open up new market opportunities and inspire fresh approaches to game development.

We cordially invite all game developers—regardless of the scale of their projects—to submit their entries for the Golden Tea Awards’ “Most Anticipated Game” category, provided their games have not yet been released and demonstrate a degree of innovation!