Welcome to Voices of Mobile Gaming: a series of interviews where industry leaders share their perspectives on the future of mobile gaming and the trends shaping the market.
​​This time, we’re speaking with Jakub Remiar, product and game design consultant and co-host of the widely followed two & a half gamers podcast. With over ten years in the industry across both developer and publisher sides, Jakub has helped shape dozens of F2P projects and advised studios on how to scale in today’s competitive environment.
Known for his candid, “no BS” insights, Jakub is one of the sharpest voices on global mobile gaming. In this talk, he tackles the hotly debated “Chinese genre takeover.” From RPGs and 4X to casual and AAA, Chinese studios aren’t just competing: they’re rewriting the rules. Jakub unpacks what this means for Western developers, why user acquisition is the real battlefield, and which genres might be next.
Recently, there have been some genres that are getting completely dominated by Chinese studios, especially the ones that historically were considered a “Western territory”. The prevalent expertise in China is in RPG related genres, but as said, recently the developers there have leveled up and they are rapidly moving into casual genres.
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This is not unique for mobile games only as we also see their latest push into AAA games with the big hit Black Myth Wukong spearheading the way.
1. Jakub, how would you describe the phenomenon of the “Chinese genre takeover”? What does it mean for the mobile gaming industry overall?
2. Which genres do you think Chinese studios have dominated the most in recent years?
Most obvious of course is 4X with Rivergame and Century Games, and Merge 2 with Microfun. 4X expertise was long native for Chinese companies, but as you saw, the rather new Merge 2 genre has also slowly cornered now. Even Century has a top 5 game there as we speak. But mostly all RPG related genres are either completely or for the most part dominated by these studios: Idle RPG, Shoot ‘em up, Tower Defense, etc.
3. Where do you see the main strength of Chinese developers: production quality, marketing power, or the ability to adapt successful mechanics?
They work much more is the simple answer. The whole 9-9-6 schedule, from 9 until 21 six days a week sounds like a fairy tale to some Western developers, but in the end it is the reality in China. So while we wonder over here about 4 day work weeks, they are putting more manpower into their project just by default work schedule.
4. How much do cultural aspects of China influence game design and genre domination?
5. Do you notice differences between Chinese and Western studios in terms of monetisation and user acquisition strategies?
As said, UA is completely different, and in terms of monetisation it is always much deeper. There are literally templates for metagame features going around in China, that these studios adhere to and iterate from, which always puts monetisation, especially in midcore genres, into the driving seat of their project.
6. How important is aggressive marketing (including fake ads) for Chinese games to win over international markets?
As mentioned, this is one of the ultimate strategies to not only lower the CPI but also “create more players”. Chinese games are built in a way in that there is an “onboarding” game first, the one being marketed by those fake ads, which are now not fake anymore, as you really get to play that game from the ads. But once you settle in a little bit, the real money making game unfolds and the onboarding game gets pushed to the background. 

7. What are the most common mistakes Western studios make when trying to compete with Chinese projects?
They don’t understand this UA strategy, as executing only on fake ads isn’t enough anymore. You need to also change your product onboarding and gameplay systems in order to be able to fully support this tactic. We have still not come to this realisation in the West. Also Western UA is still not aggressive enough, with few exceptions such as Playrix or Dream Games.
8. Do you think the “genre takeover” will lead to a standardisation of mobile games or, on the contrary, to greater diversification?
It will actually lead to more innovation, as Chinese companies are also aggressively competing between each other. But it will also lead to much less market share for Western developers, mainly in their home countries.
9. In your opinion, which genre is likely to be the next target for Chinese studios to dominate?
The big push is of course casual. After Merge 2 has been taken, now all eyes are set for the biggest casual sub genre: Match 3. But that won’t be as easy as it was with Merge 2, as in Match 3 there are much bigger companies to compete with, and as I mentioned, they fully embraced the Chinese UA model already, so it's a more leveled playing field.
10. If Western developers could adopt one key practice from their Chinese counterparts, what should it be?
It is the UA product funnel I mentioned. And actually this is not a question of if but rather a question of survival. They either adapt it and are able to scale their games again, or they won’t be able to adapt it and get pushed out of the market in the process.
