China is already the world’s single largest video games market overall, outstripping the US in 2015 and continuing to pace away with incredible strength in PC and mobile especially.
It is also already the largest market for VR games by some distance with an estimated 3M+ mobile or PC headsets already in circulation and growing incredibly fast.
According to i-Media the domestic market will already generate nearly $1billion dollars in 2015, growing to $5.5Bn by 2020.
However, the market is still hungry for content, which is where the opportunity lays right now for western developers. Western game design and creativity is highly respected and as has been proven in the mobile space can be very successful. The early days of Chinese domestic industry were dominated by western games from Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja and Ski Safari through to Candy Crush, Subway Surfers and Clash of Clans.
Right now this all adds up to a great opportunity, which is why Steel Media, creators of Pocket Gamer have joined forces with leading Chinese VR manufacturer DeePoon (creators of PC and mobile VR devices and the leading VR app store) to create the GlobalVRChallenge to help bring the best new western content and talent to the Chinese market.