AI amping up gaming developers

As one of China's leading game companies, the group began its overseas expansion early and has achieved remarkable growth over the years. In 2025, the group saw its total revenue surge 67.55 percent year-on-year to nearly 37.9 billion yuan, with overseas' sales accounting for 58.63 percent. In the first quarter, the group raked in 11.01 billion yuan in markets overseas, up 35.19 percent year-on-year, according to the company.

In June, the group's hit game Whiteout Survival topped the global mobile game revenue chart, with its another hit Kingshot standing in seventh place, according to app data analysis firm Sensor Tower.

"For China's gaming industry, globalization is a goal that will never be fully achieved. The overseas markets are far from saturated and we still have huge potential to grow. Chinese game productions have high quality, and our developers and culture are gaining increasing recognition globally. We're proud to see such changes," said Hu.

The accelerating pace of Chinese game companies' globalization is also bringing vast opportunities for global emerging businesses. Aiming to better help game developers and companies acquire users worldwide in competitive markets, Berlin-based adtech company Almedia — which specializes in rewarded user acquisition — joined this year's ChinaJoy to find more Chinese partners.

Moritz Hollander, 24-year-old founder and CEO of the company established six years ago, said their approach involves a "better form of marketing or advertising" by offering cash rewards to users for engaging with advertisers' games and apps. He believes that in the future, this reward-based approach will be the new way people discover games and engage with brands, similar to loyalty and cashback systems with credit cards.

Hollander said the global gaming industry is very fast and competitive, so developers need to be very agile in various aspects. He said it is very efficient to work with Chinese developers, who are generally very fast, flexible, open-minded to new ideas, advanced and sophisticated.

"We focus more on mobile games and China — with a huge gaming market — is particularly successful and dominant in mobile gaming. It is one of the key growth markets and also the most important market for us right now.

"We hope to work with both big Chinese game companies and smaller game developers to together build an ecosystem of rewards, and help them expand their global presence with our users, platforms and global network across 16 nations," said Hollander.

Aiming to offer users more fun and rewarding gaming experience, Almedia's platforms have garnered over 80 million users worldwide. The company also launched a new Link product targeting the Chinese market during ChinaJoy, further reinforcing its long-term commitment to the nation's game developers for their global growth.

The global games market closed 2025 at $201.6 billion, marking a 9.1 percent year-on-year increase. Revenue for mobile games are expected to grow 6.8 percent year-on-year to reach $121.1 billion in 2026, said gaming industry consultancy Newzoo.