Made in China: one company's struggle to do what they love

You probably haven’t heard of Songtang Animations. It’s a small developer with a staff of just 25 operating out of Haicang, Xiamen. The team is led by the charismatic Mr. Wu, a veteran with fifteen years experience in China’s gaming industry.

He founded Songtang in 2003 as an animation studio but soon decided the company’s future lay in gaming. Since 2007 Songtang have released several “traditional” video games, such as browser-based Demarcia, which has now ceased operations but which at its 2010 peak boasted over 100,000 regular players, and Wizards and Goblins which racked up around a million downloads*. The company is preparing its latest game, Aron, for launch within the next few weeks.

A screen from Wizards and Goblins

A pleasant surprise

I have visited several Chinese companies in the past and my experiences have rarely been positive. For those of you unfamiliar with Chinese office management, it tends to be rigidly hierarchical and criticism from the lower ranks is almost unheard of. In the institutions I have visited previously—everything from private language schools to light bulb factories—employees have little to no enthusiasm for their jobs. They are underpaid, overworked (6 days a week and 12 hour day are common) and seem to wish they were anywhere else.

So you can imagine how surprised I was when I entered Songtang’s brightly-lit, open-plan office, filled with smiling, industrious people working on an incredible variety of projects. Even more surprising: there was Mr. Wu, the boss, sitting with his employees, chatting with them, and working with them. There seemed to be none of the disconnect between management and staff that I had seen in other places. That’s not to say that there’ll nerf gun fights at Songtang anytime soon, but at least there’s no madatory marching or “we-love-you-boss” chanting like I have seen in other places.

A shared vision

Wu is an artist at heart (though I am not sure he realises it), and goes out of his way to make the games he wants to make. It was obvious on my arrival that he wanted to show me the pictures and give me the tour of Songtang’s growing repertoire. He even showed me discontinued games that had been dead for years, simply because he still loves them.

He asked me to play his latest game and talked about Songtang’s future ideas. His enthusiasm for his work was contagious and I rapidly found myself lost in chats with Mr. Wu and his staff about something we all loved. When questioned about Songtang’s products, Mr. Wu was proud to tell me that his company does not copy.

Mr. Wu and myself

He is aware of China’s reputation for cloning foreign games (see our piece on the infamous Hearthstone clone) but insists this is not “Songtang’s way.” And for what it’s worth, I agree that its new game Aron is not a clone. It does borrow; the game is part Fruit Ninja, part Infinity Blade and its art style is reminiscent of Plants vs Zombies. What impressed me most was how proud the developers were of their work and how eager they were for me to try it. This was no clone.