Nikke Launches in China After Months of Localization and Censorship Work
The South Korean hit has made more than $1B worldwide
Nikke launched in Mainland China on May 22. This happens after the Shift Up game was released elsewhere in 2022.
During the time since that initial launch, the game was localized for the Chinese market and now officially released for PC, iOS and Android.
More than 8 million registered players at launch, and growing…
-Through its localization process, the game was heavily censored. In particular for the characters design, which saw a lot of their clothes “toned down” (pictured below, comparisons between the original design and the Chinese version for some characters).
The localization also includes voice over, translations, monetization networks integration, servers and more...
-It's important to understand that the game already had a substantial user base in China, even before the official release.
-While the officially licensed version of the game for China only released this month, people in the country were already playing the global version anyway, mostly on PC. No issues accessing that on Steam.
-Many people in China who were playing it on PC will likely continue playing that version. However, for the mobile versions in particular, there are a lot of conveniences to playing the local version: servers, social/community features, local integrated payment methods (WeChat/Alipay)...
This Chinese version will mostly grow the audience of the game on mobile, I think.
-Also, Nikke is the main revenue maker for Shift Up globally, above Stellar Blade (which is more well known among core gamers), having produced more than US$1 Billion in revenue since it first launched.
-While Nikke ("Goddess of Victory: Nikke") is developed by South Korean Shift Up, the game is globally published by Level Infinite, which is a major publishing subsidiary fully owned and operated by Chinese Tencent.
PS: I don’t usually post about individual game launches, but in an attempt to publish more articles, I’ll try to make more “short-form” posts such as this one.