In the last month of 2025, Guangdong produced games will once again stand under the spotlight of the global game industry: Kuloh's work "The Sound of the Tide" will take over "The Genshin Impact", "The Black Myth: Wukong" and win the TGA "Voice of the Player" award. In addition to "Mingchao", the product "Puzzles&Survival" under Sanqi Interactive Entertainment, as a phenomenal work of Chinese games going global, quickly entered the top ten of the global iOS bestseller list in 52 regions after its launch.

In recent years, as the "ballast stone" of the national gaming industry, Guangdong games have gradually become one of the core forces for Chinese culture to go global, and have become a beautiful new business card for Guangdong.

The overseas matrix team is complete and full of vitality

At the "2025 Global Game Industry CEO Conference" that ended in October this year, over 1000 elite domestic and foreign game companies gathered in Guangdong to discuss the development trends and overseas strategies of the global game industry. Lu Xiaokun, Executive Chairman of Guangdong Game Industry Association, pointed out in his opening speech that the global game market is going through a critical stage of expansion and transformation, and the industry has a strong development momentum. It is expected that the global market size will exceed 200 billion US dollars by 2025. According to data from the first half of 2025, the overseas revenue of Chinese self-developed games increased by 11.07% year-on-year, while the overseas revenue of Guangdong games exceeded 25 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28%, and the global market share continued to expand.

As an important component of Chinese culture going global, games independently developed by China have shown a steady growth trend in the global market.

Guangdong, as a major city in the national gaming industry, has long been ranked first in the country, and its performance in exporting games overseas is very impressive. In the past five years, the total revenue of Guangdong games going global has exceeded 188.6 billion yuan, with annual revenues of 31.76 billion yuan, 38.92 billion yuan, 37.02 billion yuan, 38.54 billion yuan, and 42.36 billion yuan respectively, showing an overall growth trend. Several gaming companies in Guangdong, including Tencent, Sanqi, Chuangmeng Tiandi, LeNiu, Junhai, Yuanyou, QuXuan, Xinghui, Shiyu, and China Mobile Games, have been selected as "National Key Cultural Export Enterprises for 2025-2026".

Data shows that in 2024, 8 gaming companies in Guangdong will enter the first tier of overseas revenue exceeding 1 billion yuan, including "old giants" such as Tencent and NetEase, as well as "rising stars" such as Kuluo Games and Lingxi Interactive Entertainment, forming a complete and dynamic overseas matrix.

On June 10, 2025, the "Guangdong Game Overseas Alliance" was unveiled in Guangzhou. The alliance will integrate resources to form a joint force for going global, establish an overseas service system covering research and development, finance and taxation, and channels, and improve the level of overseas services.

One core drives, multiple industries go global

It is worth mentioning that the overseas driving effect of Guangdong's gaming industry has broken through the single industry boundary, forming a cultural overseas ecology of "one core leading, multi industry collaboration", and promoting the upgrading from product overseas to industrial cluster overseas.

Driven by the core gaming industry, upstream creative design, midstream distribution services, downstream IP derivatives and other full chain enterprises have joined the ranks of going global, building a complete cultural industry chain for going global. Keyun Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou, once known as the "Number One Gaming Street in China", not only gathers numerous top gaming companies, but also generates a large number of art outsourcing and sound production teams with international service capabilities. These teams not only provide support for local gaming companies, but also directly serve global gaming research and development, becoming an important supporting force for cultural globalization.

The globalization of IP derived business models has further amplified the effectiveness of cultural globalization. Guangdong gaming companies, with high-quality gaming IP as their core, promote the extension of cultural values to diverse fields such as film and television, animation, and cultural and creative products, forming a complete closed loop of "gaming IP - full category derivatives - global dissemination". Relying on the industrial advantages of Dongguan, known as the "City of Trendy Games", Guangdong's game IP derivative products are exported worldwide, with over 4000 toy manufacturing enterprises and nearly 1500 upstream and downstream supporting enterprises, covering nearly 1/4 of the world's animation derivative production, transforming cultural symbols in games into tangible and collectible physical products, and continuously deepening the cultural awareness of overseas users.

What is more noteworthy is that games have also built a bridge for other cultural industries to go global, forming a cultural trade pattern of "one core driving, multiple industries going global". Tencent produced IP dramas such as "Celebrating the Past Years" and "everlasting longing for each other", which have landed on mainstream video websites in hundreds of countries and regions, such as Europe and the United States, by virtue of the advantages of overseas channels of games; The overseas distribution experience and user base accumulated by the game's overseas expansion also provide valuable support for the "new three cultural styles" of micro dramas, online literature, etc.

Win-win situation between cultural dissemination and market profitability

What are the "cultural clearance codes" for Guangdong games going global?

The overseas journey of Guangdong's gaming industry has always focused on high-quality content as its core competitiveness, and has embarked on a distinctive path of "Chinese core+global expression". The cultural core is the soul of games going global, while global expression is the key to breaking boundaries. Guangdong game companies have precisely grasped this core logic, achieving a win-win situation between cultural dissemination and market profitability, "said Professor Zhou Runan, Director of the Digital Culture Industry Research Center at Sun Yat-sen University. In terms of content creation, Guangdong gaming companies deeply explore the essence of Chinese culture and Lingnan regional culture, integrating cultural elements such as Wing Chun, lion dance, Cantonese opera, Peking Opera, and teapot throwing into game scene and gameplay design, making cultural connotations the core attraction of the game.

Guangdong gaming companies are also deeply involved in core technologies such as engine research and development, artificial intelligence, and ultra high definition rendering, breaking down language and regional barriers in cultural dissemination with the ultimate audio-visual experience. For example, Tencent's self-developed AI engine has increased the efficiency of game scene production by more than 40 times. This technological advantage not only makes Chinese games more competitive in the global market, but also enables the cultural elements contained therein to reach overseas users in a more vivid form.

It cannot be ignored that Guangdong games can continue to open up overseas markets, which is closely related to the open and inclusive culture that Guangdong has long formed. As a forefront of China's reform and opening up, Guangdong has already accumulated rich international exchange experience, providing natural advantages for game companies in cultural expression and cross-border operations.

Typical Case

Sanqi Interactive Entertainment: Overseas Revenue Increases Nearly 15 Times in Ten Years

Guangdong gaming company Sanqi Interactive Entertainment is a benchmark case for Chinese game manufacturers to go global. From 2015 to 2024, the company's annual overseas revenue increased from 356 million yuan to 5.722 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 15 times. In the first half of 2025, the company's overseas revenue was 2.724 billion yuan, firmly ranking among the top Chinese mobile game publishers in terms of overseas revenue. At present, Sanqi Interactive Entertainment has conducted business in more than 200 countries and regions worldwide, forming a product matrix covering multiple categories such as massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), strategy games (SLGs), cards and simulation management.

Sanqi Interactive Entertainment regards "refinement" as the main anchor point for its overseas layout, systematically integrating excellent traditional Chinese culture into the game design logic. The Chinese style simulation business game "Call Me the Boss" published by Sanqi Interactive Entertainment is an example of its cultural globalization. The game is based on the core gameplay logic of Song Dynasty commerce, with scene design inspired by "Along the River during Qingming Festival", and has collaborated on intangible cultural heritage projects such as Guangfu Culture, Three Mountains and Five Gardens, Peking Opera, and Lion Dance.

The game "Call Me Boss" has also launched a themed version of the "South China Sea Silk Road", cleverly integrating content such as the Maritime Silk Road, underwater archaeology, and cultural relic restoration into the game design, and conducting relevant knowledge popularization under the guidance of professional cultural relic restoration personnel. During the promotion period, this version has cumulatively reached 360 million overseas users, promoting traditional culture to enter the global perspective in a more interesting way.