Gamer in Asia: 5 surprises about Chinese gaming culture

Culture shock is a bitch. It’s that crippling feeling of total alienation and all-consuming terror when you realize that your way is not the way. Most expats in China go through culture shock, but everyone has something that they focus on: the epicenter of the shock.

For some people, it’s food; I once saw a grown man swoon when a government official scooped a gelatinous eyeball from a fish head and devoured it. For others, it’s babies pooping on the street, or China’s “unique” view of history.

For me, it was gaming, and the realization that a hobby that had always been my domain, was totally alien to me in the faraway land. I can’t describe how awful it was at the age of 22 to realize that if I wanted to game in China with the Chinese, I would be starting from scratch.

So without further ado, here are the top five culture shocks of being a western gamer in China.

1. No consoles

During my time in China I have only met a handful of console gamers, and most of them only have a Wii, bought for novelty purposes. Consoles have always been too expensive or illegal for the average Chinese gamer. So the vast majority of Chinese gamers have little to no experience using a console.

As a strictly-console gamer at the time of my arrival, this was a massive shock. I was appalled to find that most of my newfound Chinese friends had little interest in playing Gears of War co-op with me, and no one had even heard of Halo!

(See: China releases censorship rules for console games, and there are a lot of them)

It still shocks me that most Chinese know of the Super Mario Bros. series as browser games and have never held a Super Nintendo controller.

I took a long time to come to terms with the fact that if I was going to play with Chinese gamers, I was going to have to put down the controller, and pick up the keyboard and mouse.

2. Socializing is weird

Gaming in China is not social. Even when groups of friends go to internet cafes together, they sit down, put headphones on, and reduce chatter to a minimum. Gone are the days of drinking beer and playing Halo or passing a “cigarette” whilst chainsawing Locust hordes.