Indie Gaming in China

Indie games are getting more and more recognition in the U.S. and Europe, so what's the scene like in China?

There are quite a few fans of indie games in China. Of course, the scene is not as big as its U.S. or European counterpart, but it's there nonetheless (and hopefully growing). China is known for piracy, and where there's indie games, free downloads of (paid) indie games aren't far behind. We won't talk about these things here.

Anyways, to start things off, some Chinese websites on indie games. There used to be quite a few, but unfortunately some of them disappeared or is quite inactive.

Indie-G - One of the more active indie news sites out there. Covers mainly English indie news, so if you are a regular visitor of English indie news sites, you won't find much new content there, but for Chinese fans it's a great (and up-to-date) resource.

indieGM - An indie news/e-zine sort of site, came across it recently. Have some really good content, but seem to focus more on game development in terms of coverage. They're also developing their own indie game.

PC Indie Games BBS - Okay, we're sort of already out of sites... so now we're venturing to the realm of BBS. This BBS focuses on indie games, and is very active, great resource for Chinese indie fans (beware that like many other game BBS in China, there are also tons of posts related to downloading games).

Baidu BBS - And last but not least, there's a Baidu BBS for everything, so naturally there is a Indie BBS on there as well.

There was also a really good indie site called Game7z Indie Games that appeared around early 2009, but now the site seems to be down... either way, it's mentioned here in case one day the site comes back.

Many indie games popular in the U.S. are also popular in China, for example, World of Goo (粘粘世界), Machinarium (机械迷城), Braid (时空幻境), and Cave Story (洞窟物语) are all very popular among Chinese indie fans and have been translated into Chinese in various ways and forms (most were done by fans, and were made available together with the entire game, which is why there's no link to them).

Of course, this is just the fan scene. IGF has been making its way into China in recent years as well.

While the Chinese scene is still pretty small, it's definitely interesting to see how Chinese fans react to some of the games, as well as their thought on the whole idea of "indie gaming."