Gaming Makes Its Own Rules In China

CD Projekt Red and RedNote collaboration in Shanghai exposes how inconsequential many gaming regulations are in the country

This is an intentionally short post where I “recycle” content from my Twitter. It is not intended as a deeper analysis or reflection, neither is it cushioned with much context beyond the topic at hand. I just hate seeing interesting footnotes lost to Twitter’s tide of information.

CD Projekt Red and RedNote ran a pop-up shop in Shanghai, at the Red Corner Cafe, from November 4th to 11th.

Red Corner is a one-location coffee shop from the popular social media platform RedNote (小红书 - XiaoHongShu).

Besides visiting the cafe for the opening, heads from the Polish studio also visited RedNote’s offices, where they gave talks.

While the pop-up shop/cafe focus a lot on The Witcher for its decorations, it should be noticed that both Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 were very successful in China! Cyberpunk in particular.

Wild Free Market

Both games do not have a publishing license in China, and therefore ALL of their sales in the country happen through the so called “grey market” - in this case, almost all digitally on Steam, but also on consoles to a lesser extent.

So yes, all of this marketing synergy between some of the biggest IPs in gaming from one of the most reputable studios in the world (Cyberpunk launch what?! lol) with one of the biggest social media platforms on the planet is possible because PC and console gamers in China buy games outside of what local authorities regulate.

And this, “This is China” ❤️

(all the pictures used were taken from XiaoHongShu)