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the awakening moment for chinese players?

on september 20, sony's first-party masterpiece "god of war 5", which many pc users have been looking forward to for a long time, finally landed on the steam platform.

but some sharp-eyed chinese players noticed that this blockbuster game with 13 complete audio languages ​​(these 13 languages ​​also include small languages ​​such as greek and polish, and portuguese is also available in brazil and portugal) lacks chinese dubbing, and the game's release date does not have beijing time.

of course, as a game released in november 2022 and ported from the ps platform to the pc, console owners have long known that "god of war 5" does not have a chinese subtitle version - you know, the 2018 "god of war 4" did not even have simplified chinese subtitles (by the way, the pc port of "god of war 4" that later landed on the steam platform also did not have simplified chinese subtitles). this time, at least there is a simplified chinese version, which is satisfying.

but when this happened in september 2024, many chinese pc users really couldn't hold it anymore.

some players mercilessly gave "god of war 5" a bad review package:can sony pay more attention to chinese gamers? can it slightly reduce the price? can it provide chinese dubbing? can it give chinese gamers the status they deserve?and there are quite a few chinese players who support him.

judging from the comments on steam and nga communities,black myth: wukong》the extremely impressive sales volume is the biggest reason why players have the courage to give bad reviews to "god of war 5" because it does not have a chinese version.

data shows that within just one month of its launch, black myth has received more than 640,000 reviews on steam (for reference, black myth, released in february 2022, has received more than 640,000 reviews).elden ring》 has 700,000 comments). its online peak is as high as 2.41 million, ranking second in the history of steam platform. as of press time, the daily online peak of "black myth" is still as high as 576,000.

many players believe that the success of black myth has proven that chinese players have enough spending power to support any high-quality, carefully made aaa product - but the key is that merchants need to show their service attitude. it's already 2024, why are there still overseas game manufacturers who don't care about the feelings of chinese players? don't they want to make money?

in fact, just a few days after "god of war 5" was launched on steam, foreign data analysis company vginsights predicted that the sales of "black myth" on the steam platform alone have reached 20 million copies, and the total revenue has exceeded us$961 million (approximately rmb 6.79 billion).huatai securitiesit is predicted that the game's annual sales will reach 30 to 40 million copies.

behind the phenomenal product "black myth", we cannot ignore the growing voice of chinese users on steam.

according to the august 2024 software and hardware survey data released by steam, the share of players using simplified chinese increased by 3.05% in august, surpassing english (31.17%) with a share of 35.03%.it has become the most commonly used language on the steam platform.

precisely because chinese players have such a high weight on the steam platform, in recent years, some overseas manufacturers with a keen sense of smell have shown 100% sincerity in the chinese region.

the "cyberpunk: 2077" released in 2020 is professional and conscientious.resident evilthe chinese dubbing has never been interrupted in the remake of "yakuza", and the chinese dubbing of the jrpg "yakuza 8" released this year is the only three complete audio languages ​​​​in the game, along with the japanese and english dubbing.

not to mention, when cdpr updated the next-generation version of "the witcher 3", it not only added chinese dubbing for free, but also replaced the female singing in the main interface of the game with a chinese female voice, and invited professional singers (the chinese version singer is dai han annie) to perform wolf storm.

it is these games that are full of sincerity for the chinese market that make today's sony and "god of war 5" seem so out of place. and players naturally have reason to question why a masterpiece lacks the major language chinese when it has so many languages ​​​​dubbing.

there are many manufacturers like god of war 5 that do not pay enough attention to the chinese market. to some extent, many overseas manufacturers seem to be stuck in their inherent cognition, arrogantly and stereotypedly believing that there are not so many console and pc users in the chinese market, and not so many players are willing to pay for big games. but as time goes by, the chinese market may prove that they are all wrong.

i'm talking about you, there is korean audio but no chinese version of "call of duty》

today, under the "education" of blizzard, cdpr, capcom, sega and a number of acg manufacturers, chinese players have long forgotten the so-called "mother tongue shame". when they gradually realize that a game application with excellent simplified chinese subtitles or chinese dubbing shows enough respect for the chinese market, then it is time for the manufacturers to make positive changes.