What I witnessed at ChinaJoy 2024: Top game developers competed against each other, and new Internet giants joined the show

ChinaJoy 2024 was unprecedentedly grand, with top gamers competing against each other and new Internet giants competing to join the battle. In front of the NetEase Blizzard booth, players cheered for the return of Hearthstone; popular game booths such as Tencent's Valorant and Hypergryph's Arknights: The End of the World were crowded with people. New forces such as Xiaohongshu participated in the exhibition across industries, highlighting the diversification trend of the game industry. This event is not only a microcosm of China's game industry, but also heralds a future of deep integration of games with pan-entertainment, digital Internet and other fields.

One day in late July, I got off at the terminal station of Shanghai Metro Line 7.

This station is called "Huamu Road", and it is one of the closest stations to the Shanghai New International Expo Center, which is the venue for the 21st ChinaJoy (China International Digital Interactive Entertainment Expo).

So you can imagine how crowded the nearby subway stations will be during the days when ChinaJoy is scheduled.

In fact, before the train approached the terminal, I could already sense a certain joyful atmosphere in the carriage. A few people prepared unusual clothing and makeup, whispering with their companions from the same different dimension, while most people maintained a tacit and relaxed silence. Although they did not know each other and did not talk to each other, they all tacitly looked forward to a common destination.

When the doors opened, the crowd quickly flowed out. The scalpers who had been waiting for a long time surrounded the two sides of the exit and muttered words like "tickets". Most people did not have time to stop for them and hurried to the nearby buildings.

So I left the Huamu Road station, left the nagging scalpers, left the girl with twin ponytails frantically searching for her ID card on the roadside, walked into the crowd, walked into the scorching sun of Pudong, walked into the 21st ChinaJoy, and walked into another summer opened by this industry event.

1. Where players’ gazes meet

"There were 100 million people at CJ. I'm not kidding."

Since the first day of ChinaJoy, similar sentiments have popped up from time to time in the circle of friends. I looked at those pictures of huge crowds of people and the crowds were so crowded that I couldn't help but feel terrified.

ChinaJoy traffic, source: ChinaJoy official website

Therefore, on the day I arrived at ChinaJoy, I had prepared myself mentally to find that I actually had a place to stay and could come and go freely. I couldn't help but feel complacent, but also a little... disappointed?

But reality soon gave me a blow.

There were still 3 minutes left until 11 a.m., and I rushed back to Hall N3 where the NetEase Blizzard booth was located as planned, naively fantasizing that I could catch an important event on time - the latest progress of the popular game "Hearthstone" returning to the Chinese server would be announced soon.

But the moment I squeezed into Hall N3, I immediately realized that something was wrong. Not far away, under the ceiling, the red "NetEase" and blue "Blizzard" signs pointed me in the direction. It seemed that the distance was not far. But on the ground, this short distance of 100 meters was densely packed with people, and the number was visibly increasing.

Crowds of people flocking from all directions, source: B station @ NetEase Blizzard game video

The next second, a "boom" sound came over. It took me and the people around me a few seconds to realize that it was the cheers of the players.

There were still 2 minutes to 11 o'clock, and the promised "big news for the national server" seemed to have not arrived yet, but it was obvious that everyone's cheering was for a reason. So I struggled to move forward, took out my phone through the crowd, turned on the camera on the big screen of the NetEase Blizzard booth, dragged the focus to the bottom, then opened a photo from the album, zoomed in to the maximum, and finally read this line of words: "Get all the cards you missed in 2023 for free! All gold cards are free!"

I immediately understood what the players were cheering for. For Hearthstone players who have lost the Chinese server for a long time, this is a crucial compensation measure when they meet again.

The good news that players have been waiting for, source: B station @ NetEase Blizzard game video

I made up my mind and approached the NetEase Blizzard booth in small steps, holding my phone. But there were too many competitors, and people were piled up in one place, so I was almost inevitably pushed in the opposite direction, and there were only anxious spectators in front, behind, and around me, but with nowhere to go.

Now I'm regretting my underestimation of the enemy. Looking at the situation, I'm afraid I have to go half an hour early to have a chance to grab a front row seat - this world is a huge Disney fireworks show.

Gradually, the crowd almost froze, as if someone had activated a crowd control technique covering hundreds of thousands of players, leaving only rounds of cheers rising one after another.

On my left was a man standing on tiptoe desperately looking towards the booth, and on my right was a staff member with a troubled look on his face. The former was cursing and swearing, but was afraid of missing out on any new information, while the latter didn't seem to understand what was happening, but was still trying in vain to maintain order at the scene.

Excited players, source: B station @ NetEase Blizzard game video

Whenever a new cheer sounded, I would press the camera button towards the screen in the booth, wanting to see clearly what attracted all the players' attention. Although this place was too far from the center of the stage, and there were countless excited audiences on both ends, the crowd naturally formed a large network to convey information, and the cheers spread out like ripples, moving everyone in the room.

It wasn't until Hearthstone executive producer Nathan Lyons-Smith left the stage that the scene came to an end. I tried to record the last scene on the screen, but I happened to capture the moment when more people raised their phones at the same time.

We tried to capture the same message: "The fire has been rekindled, lighting the way home. The tavern is about to open, waiting for the hero's return."

Hearthstone announces return date, source author

At the extremely lively ChinaJoy, the long story of Blizzard Games' return finally reached a turning point that everyone expected. Next, the narrative of "the top streamer returns to the palace" will probably start like this: "Chapter 1, return to China."

In fact, for ChinaJoy, which gathers countless core users and important manufacturers, the long-lost Blizzard game is naturally not the only top-tier game. The new generation of popular games from leading manufacturers made their presence felt at this year's ChinaJoy.

For example, Tencent's popular shooting masterpiece "Valorant" has become a new force in the local PC game market after entering the national server. There are anchors fighting in its booth, and professional players airborne. Almost every time I pass by, I want to join in the fun, but I can't squeeze into the front row. According to rumors, this area is the same as the NetEase Blizzard booth. It has been warned more than once for "blocking the aisle" due to its high popularity.

Popularity of "Valorant", source: ChinaJoy official website

On the other side, the booth of Hypergryph Network was also bustling with people, which showed the popularity of the two-dimensional category in recent years. When I walked around the crowd and came to the end of the trial team of Hypergryph's new work "Arknights: The End", I was caught off guard by the intimate announcement that "Today's trial tickets have been distributed."

Cruel announcement, the source of the picture should be noted that ChinaJoy had just opened for less than an hour. Then, similar scenes were repeated.

For example, the PlayStation exhibition area, where the trial queue was stopped early, attracted the attention of a large number of players with domestic games such as "Shadow Blade Zero" and "Infinite Nikki". The specially opened "Excellent Domestic Game Area" made me eager to try it, but when I got closer, the eye-catching end-of-queue sign quickly killed my fluke mentality...

Another cruel announcement, source: Users will vote with their feet, this is an iron rule that has been verified at every ChinaJoy. Every material booth "surrounded" by fans, every stage performance cheered by the audience, every trial play area crowded with people, is where the eyes of countless players meet.

These emotional links point to the current highlights of the Chinese gaming industry, and also contain the future trends that will affect the entire industry: globalization of cooperation, quality content, re-exploration of categories, the rise of local blockbusters... Year after year, feeling the direction of the tide in the crowd is probably the most valuable aspect of offline exhibitions.

2. When Internet companies join the party

After seeing Lilith's flagship products, I continued to explore with the crowd. I took out my phone and looked at the map of the exhibition hall. Next door were 4399, Haoyou Kuaibao, and Xiaohongshu...

Wait, there seems to be some strange name mixed in?

When I put my phone in my pocket and looked up, I saw the iconic red and white colors of Xiaohongshu. Even among a group of colorful game companies, its recognition is not inferior.

Eye-catching Little Red Book, source author

Xiaohongshu, which participated in ChinaJoy for the first time, arranged a square open booth around the theme of "New World of Games". Interestingly, Xiaohongshu's exhibition layout is completely different from that of game companies. It did not focus on a certain product, but chose the perspective of crowd classification.

Specifically, Xiaohongshu’s booth listed five types of player “personas”, namely “Romantic Weaver”, “Dimension Traveler”, “Fragment Collector”, “Life Explorer” and “Competitive Artist”.

Just by looking at the label, you can roughly guess the corresponding character characteristics. In fact, Xiaohongshu had already released a lot of public signals long before the official opening of ChinaJoy. On July 25, at the China International Digital Entertainment Industry Conference (CDEC) Summit Forum, the general manager of Xiaohongshu's commercial Internet and entertainment industry group took the stage to give a speech with the theme of "Focusing on the game boutique strategy and building a positive content ecosystem."

Immediately following on July 26, Xiaohongshu held a closed-door private meeting for the gaming industry, with a very frequent pace of comments.

The general manager of Xiaohongshu's commercial Internet and entertainment industry group delivered a speech. Image source: ChinaJoy official website

It can be seen that Xiaohongshu is ready to enter the gaming industry, and this ChinaJoy may be the starting line for this heavyweight player to conquer the new track.

However, it seems that Xiaohongshu has not shown much interest in self-developed products, but has mainly focused its energy on the distribution dimension, intending to provide a set of solutions to the problem of seeking growth in the gaming industry.

In other words, Xiaohongshu wants to establish itself as the next "traffic code" of the gaming industry and participate in the development of the industry as a channel.

According to official data, Xiaohongshu now has more than 70 million MAU game users, and the average daily exposure of game content exceeds 2 billion, which is a user base worth cultivating. Combined with the content of the senior management's speech, Xiaohongshu is likely to enhance the platform's tool capabilities in the next stage to help game companies reach potential groups, while trying to open up application download capabilities to attract more game manufacturers to join Xiaohongshu with strong conversion.

Therefore, we can better understand why the Xiaohongshu booth at ChinaJoy chose to highlight five types of player tags. After all, the user segmentation ideas they represent will probably be the key selling point for Xiaohongshu to promote games in the future.

In fact, Xiaohongshu is not the only "cross-border player" I met at this year's ChinaJoy.

Today, almost all Internet companies are trying to "please" young people in various ways in order to establish close relationships with the Internet generation. As a rare offline venue that directly faces C-end users, ChinaJoy will naturally become a place for team building for many large companies.

Standing in the E3 Hall that day, I found myself surrounded by various Internet companies. Looking around, on the left was TikTok Live, on the right was Youku Animation, in front of me was the Keep medal, and behind me was Soul App...

People who came to the Soul App booth to receive awards, source author

Before arriving at the Douyin exhibition area, I had already seen the recruitment slogans of Douyin live broadcast in every corner along the way: "Start broadcasting! Two-dimensional", and I felt Douyin's determination to integrate into the atmosphere of the scene early on. The Tencent Video exhibition area next to it also knows how to participate in ChinaJoy exhibitions. It boldly built a grand real scene for IP adaptations such as "Sword Coming". At first glance, the style is very similar to that of game manufacturers, which can be said to be seamless.

Looking at Ele.me, Keep and Soul App, each of them has come up with interesting new tricks, and invited users at ChinaJoy to join the party with strength. Ele.me made a series of peripherals with the brand IP "Big Blue" in the shape of a blue knight, and opened a millet store on the spot. Keep came with IP joint medals, continuing to capture those young people who are moved by it. Soul App, which participated in the exhibition again, launched the original IP "Shanhailing·Dasheng Shanhai" ChinaJoy special digital avatar, playing the wonderful operation of airdropping digital collections...

I took on the special mission of capturing mountain and sea spirit beasts at the Soul App booth, and then I rushed to take photos and check in with the popular IPs on Qidian.com, and then lost myself in the classic lines that I couldn't read enough...

With so many "non-gaming companies" participating in the exhibition, does it mean that the "gaming flavor" of ChinaJoy has faded?

From another perspective, it is better to say that ChinaJoy has become more diverse in its "flavors" and the meaning of games has become more diverse. Nowadays, the boundaries of the game industry continue to expand, the barriers between many media have long been broken, and more opportunities for scenarios have emerged.

On the one hand, the IP development chain of pan-entertainment has brought many new opportunities such as the integration of film and games. On the other hand, the continuous innovation of digital Internet gameplay combines games with social networking, e-commerce, local life and even sports technology, which not only enriches the interactive experience of the majority of users, but also greatly broadens the imagination space of various vertical fields.

In the venue enclosed by the New International Expo Center, in the miniature window opened by ChinaJoy, we are able to witness an extended "game+" narrative - everything about games, and games about everything.