For several years, China has been a significant gaming market, initially focused on MMO and mobile games, but habits are starting to shift. The success of Black Myth Wukong in August 2024 (selling 20 million copies in 15 days, with 25 million sales to date) and the influx of numerous AAA single-player narrative games demonstrate that Chinese gamers have a genuine interest in genres previously considered exclusive to Western markets. This is no longer accurate, as evidenced by figures released by Valve on its Steam platform indicating a significant change. In February 2025, according to Valve, the number of Chinese users increased by 20.88%, surpassing the growth rate of English-speaking users, placing China’s total user ratio at 50.06%, compared to 23.79% for English-speaking players.
For Valve, the increase in the number of Chinese users in February was expected, as it coincides with the Lunar New Year vacation period. In contrast, the Christmas period in December 2024 saw the monthly user ratio for English-speaking users reach 42.14%. This figure is still lower than the current Chinese figures, but it indicates that user numbers tend to rise significantly during holidays. If Black Myth Wukong indeed drives this growth or serves as its entry point, another Chinese game has also confirmed that Steam is now a platform of interest to Chinese gamers.
February 2025 marked the release of Mecha Break, developed by Amazing Seasun Games, which made its playable demo available as part of the Steam Next Fest. The demo drew a substantial number of players, predominantly from China, with a peak concurrency of 317,522 users. This level of engagement is noteworthy, even surpassing what some Western AAA titles achieve despite extensive marketing efforts.
A few days ago, during the full promotion of his Split Fiction, Josef Fares acknowledged that more than half of the 23 million copies sold of his It Takes Two were purchased in China. Similarly, according to some analysts, the remarkable launch of Monster Hunter Rise (8 million copies sold in three days) is attributed in part to the Chinese market’s significant role, contributing to this Steam surge with approximately 1.3 million concurrent players just hours after its release.
Regardless, Steam is experiencing a notable increase in users from China, with numbers continuously growing and expected to continue due to an increasing number of titles from Chinese studios arriving this year and in 2026. This trend is anticipated to persist and possibly endure. The Chinese video game market has been expanding annually, with the PC and console markets particularly showing remarkable growth in recent years. According to the 2024 report on China’s gaming industry, the Chinese console gaming market grew by 55.13% in 2024 compared to the previous year, a trend expected to continue.
