The words you meet on the way into China.

China’s limits on minors’ online gaming time and spending, enforced through real-name registration. A domestic release must describe its anti-addiction function in the licence application; a game on international Steam is outside them.

The difference between a game’s review score from Simplified Chinese reviewers and its score from all reviewers. Chinese scores run lower across the board; the China Steam Signals index measures the gap each month.

Steam’s Lunar New Year period, when the monthly count of Chinese Steam users roughly doubles. The single most important moment in the Chinese PC calendar for a discount or a launch.

The Chinese partner in a co-publishing deal. Distinct from a licensed domestic publisher, which files for a game licence and operates the game inside the mainland.

A Chinese partner takes an existing Steam Global release and funds and runs Chinese localisation, marketing and community for a share of China revenue. The game stays on the developer’s Steam page and the developer keeps the IP.

A release inside mainland China on Steam China, WeGame, TapTap or the Chinese app stores, operated by a licensed Chinese publisher under a game licence. Slow and selective for imported games.

ByteDance’s short-video platform (the Chinese counterpart of TikTok), used for vertical clips and livestreams. Also a mini-game platform with its own published revenue terms.

One of China’s largest games media groups; its publishing arm co-publishes Western titles, and its annual Steam white paper is a common source for Chinese player data.

A game licence issued for a foreign-developed game. Approved in separate, smaller batches from domestic games: 98, 110 and 95 in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

A short-video platform second to Douyin. Unproven for PC game marketing in the public record.

A mainland company holding an online publishing service permit with an online-game scope, the only kind of applicant the NPPA accepts for a game licence. Every domestic release of a foreign game goes through one.

Translating and adapting a game for Chinese players: store copy, interface, tutorials, subtitles, dialogue and support messages, plus fonts, line wrapping and cultural references. Register matters as much as accuracy.

Linguistic quality assurance: a native speaker playing the localised build to check that translated text reads correctly in context. Vendor rates run around EUR 34 an hour.

A floor on what the developer receives regardless of sales, paid as an advance or a guaranteed royalty. Rare in Western indie deals with Chinese publishers; licence fees are rarer still.

Revenue after agreed deductions. Every contract defines it differently, so the definition, not the percentage, is the first thing to read in a term sheet. EightSix’s own fee is a share of China net revenue as defined in the service agreement.

The National Press and Publication Administration, the regulator that issues game licences and publishes the monthly approval lists.

Experience gained inside a publisher rather than a studio: planning launches, buying media and reading the statements from the side that writes them. The experience the EightSix team brings.

Blocking a game from sale or play in a territory. In China the trigger is content rather than price: map labelling of disputed territories or other red-line content brings a lock, not a review.

Setting a different Steam price for each currency region. Valve’s suggested China price has sat at roughly 60% of the US price; Chinese players expect their region to be among the cheapest and react to being priced above it.

The split of net revenue between developer and publisher. First-hand accounts put a Chinese co-publisher’s share at around half of China revenue; the base, deductions and recoupment order matter more than the percentage.

The clause that returns rights to the developer when a publisher fails to perform or the term ends. The exit a studio relies on if a partner underperforms, so it is negotiated before signature.

Since August 2025 Steam shows a separate review score per language once a game has 2,000 reviews overall and 200 in that language. The gap between the Chinese and overall score is the most useful number on a store page.

The written form used in mainland China, and the language Steam reports as the largest primary language on 2024 annual data (33.7%). Traditional Chinese is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau and is a separate localisation.

The quality Chinese reviewers most often praise or find missing. It means a willingness to listen, fix and compensate, not production values: a fast reply in Chinese is worth more than a polished trailer.

An open-source CJK typeface licensed for commercial use. A safe default for a Simplified Chinese build; commercial Chinese fonts can cost over USD 10,000 and the wrong font order substitutes Japanese glyphs for Chinese ones.

The onshore Steam service Valve operates with Perfect World, where every game needs government approval held by a Chinese publisher. Not the same as Steam Global, and a Chinese translation of a store page does not put a game on it.

The international Steam storefront, reachable from mainland China and where most Chinese Steam spending happens. The route most Western PC studios start with, under their own Steamworks account.

The report in Steamworks that breaks sales and wishlists down by country. It exists even though the public wishlist page hides it, and it is the first thing to pull when reading your own Chinese demand.

How long a publishing agreement runs. A China deal should have a defined term with reversion at the end, and the term of EightSix’s revenue share is tied to it.

The countries a publishing agreement covers. A China deal should cover mainland China (and only with a reason, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan); a Chinese publisher asking for worldwide rights is asking for a different deal.

Tencent’s PC game platform and the main domestic alternative to Steam China. Games on it need a licence; Monster Hunter: World was removed days after its 2018 launch despite approval.

A larger share of a game’s Steam wishlists coming from China than its sales or page traffic would predict. One of the three signals (with Simplified Chinese reviews and localisation requests) that suggest a game is worth assessing for China.

Tax deducted at source on royalties leaving China, typically 10%, plus 6% VAT withheld on the royalty. Tax certificates from the publisher let the developer credit the withholding against its own tax; the treaty position depends on the developer’s country.