Today, we’re discussing all things gaming in China! Our illustrious guest is Daniel Camilo, a Portuguese national who has spent over a decade in the Chinese video game industry. We cover the most important titles, publishing and development trends, and where the industry is headed.

We discuss:

• How China’s game industry climbed the value chain from low-cost mobile and PC titles to globally competitive AAA releases,

• Why Genshin Impact reset global expectations, becoming the template for live-service “cash cows,”

• China’s domestic market’s newfound self-sufficiency, as hundreds of millions of middle-class gamers mean Chinese developers no longer need international success,

• Steam’s magical liminal status in China as a de facto gateway for uncensored and imported games,

• Why gaming is a global language in ways movies and music aren’t, and how mechanics and genres travel even when stories don’t,

• The Wuchang: Fallen Feathers controversy, where nationalist backlash led to patched-out boss deaths and preemptive self-censorship.

We also cover Daniel’s pick for the biggest Chinese game of 2026, the looming Genshin-style live-service bubble, and how a game set in 1984 East Germany channels distinctly Chinese workplace anxiety.

Listen now on your favorite podcast app.

How China Leveled Up

Jordan Schneider: Watching the industry’s industrial upgrading has been fascinating. It mirrors other Chinese sectors — starting with straightforward, low-capital commercial products, simple 2D PC games and free-to-play mobile titles, and moving up the value chain. Now, Chinese developers are taking big swings with AAA titles featuring eight-figure budgets and quality rivaling global studios. Daniel, is that a reasonable generalization of the past decade?

Daniel Camilo: Mobile remains the largest market slice, but if I want to highlight one title that changed everything — Genshin Impact. Even before Black Myth: Wukong, Genshin shifted expectations. It was a free-to-play title available across platforms that felt like an AAA experience. It demonstrated an ambition and scale previously unseen from Chinese developers — or any mobile developers, for that matter.

Jordan Schneider: Give us a primer on Genshin Impact. Who made it, and how big was it?

Daniel Camilo: Genshin Impact was made by miHoYo and it was released in 2020 as a free-to-play, open-world, story-driven RPG with anime-inspired aesthetics. It was available first on mobile and PC, and more recently on all consoles except the Switch — Xbox was the last platform to get it. The game became a huge success, ...