Big Time Rush

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GUANGZHOU nike air max plus tn saldi , Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Like many urban young Chinese of his age, Li Yifei grew up in the late 1990s and early 2000s playing the popular American video games Legend and Warcraft.

He remembers using an English-Chinese dictionary to look up translations for the storyline and characters, which had little resemblance to anything in Chinese culture.

Today, Li's generation of Chinese gamers have come of age as talented game developers. They are determined to make popular games that entice foreign players to Google how to play characters such as the Monkey King or Lyu Bu.

"When I was in college, I had the dream of making a video game that was loved by players around the world," said Li nike air max 270 saldi , who founded the gaming company 37wan Network in 2011.

A year later, Li and his colleagues published the Beauties of Qin, a fantastic real-time strategy game set in the first dynasty of China's imperial periods, the Qin.

While targeting domestic players, the game has been released overseas.

Though the game was accepted in Hong Kong, Taiwan nike air max 95 saldi , Macao and Southeast Asia, it failed to penetrate the West.

The company's second game, featuring warlords from the Three Kingdoms, also performed badly overseas.

"We learned not to aim too high. At least, we had some success in markets nearby where people were more or less familiar with Chinese culture," Li said. "It is not easy for Three Kingdoms warlords like Lyu Bu and Liao Hua to register in the Western mind nike air max 98 saldi , which is more comfortable with Tom and Jerry," he said.

GOLDEN TIME

Li and his peers went into the gaming industry at a perfect time. China's tech sector was growing faster than ever; there had been an explosive growth in the domestic market; a number of high-caliber code writers were entering the job market.

The Chinese games market has grown into the world's biggest, valued at 166 billion yuan (about 25 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016, representing a quarter of the global market.

Amsterdam-headquartered research firm Newzoo named China the world's top gaming market by revenue in its 2017 Global Games Market Report.

37wan Network, which focuses on mobile gaming, raked in 5.2 billion yuan last year nike air max 1 saldi , creating 1 billion yuan profit for its shareholders. Six years since inception, the listed company is valued 50 billion yuan.

"In China, gaming and online advertisements are the two sub-sectors that promise investors good returns," Li said.

The leader of China's gaming industry is tech titan Tencent, also the operator of leading Chinese messaging app WeChat.

It created multiplayer online battle arena game Honors of Kings, which has over 200 million registered users nike air max 90 leather saldi , with 50 million playing daily. The game was so addictive that Tencent was pressured by parents, teachers and the media to limit playing time for the underaged.

Tencent acquired one of the world's most popular mobile game developer Supercell last year and has been localizing Honors of Kings for overseas markets. Called Strike of Kings, the English version was the top downloaded game in Turkey -- on either Apple's app store or Google Play -- this April.

On Facebook, eager non-Mandarin-speaking players were even searching for the English version before it was released.

"No one has still made an English patch for this game? Is there an English guide for this?" one of the fans asked.

"Foreigners look for an English patch for a Chinese game? This is happening. I want to have a good laugh with pride," wrote a Chinese game commentator.

SOFT POWER

Industry observers say that as the domestic market becomes saturated, it is natural for Chinese game developers to look for overseas consumers.

"All Chinese game developers set their eyes abroad. It is not just a natural choice by the market nike air max 90 ultra essential saldi , but the dream of this generation of Chinese game developers. They want to create internationally recognized brand names," said Gong Daojun, vice president of Seasun Entertainment.

"The factory of the world is transforming from producing game consoles to making games," Gong said. "We are coming of age."

Chinese game companies already make one-third of their online gaming revenue from abroad, but Li said he has not seen a game rich in Chinese culture break into mainstream Western markets.

The Chinese authorities have been calling for efforts to build the country's soft power, not to impose China's ideology but to let Chinese traditions nike air max 90 ultra br saldi , culture and values become accepted or popular overseas.

Game developers are attracting spontaneous participation in the private sector.

Games have joined a growing assembly of Chinese cultural exports ranging from films and television series to boys bands.

Li said that technically speaking the games produced by Chinese developers were already in the world's first rank, but it might take longer for the cultural elements to become popular.

But there is every reason to be optimistic as Japan has successfully marketed its animation such as Dragon Ball in the West.

He said introducing figures such as Batman and Superman into Chinese games, as Tencent did with Strike of Kings, could ease the entry of Chinese games into the Western market but hybrids were far from a successful cultural export.

Having tested the water with the company's own games, Li has learned that it is impossible to impose every Chinese value on foreign players. The best way is to find and market the commonly accepted ones.

"I found it hard when it comes to values like filial obedience or an individual's full submission to authorities," Li said. "But heroism and patriotism nike air max 90 essential saldi , yes. That is something Chinese and Western values both have."

Lu Xiaokun, president of the Guangdong Entertainment & Game Industry Association, said that it was the ultimate goal of Chinese game developers to turn Chinese cultural content into a worl