Diezhi, the one that has "rolled" its way to the spotlight, is at the forefront of Chinese game companies going global.

"The rise of Chinese games" might be the most frequently heard phrase at various game exhibitions this year. However, different from the past few years, for players and Chinese game companies, this phrase is no longer just a blessing and aspiration but a clear - cut fact.

From Gamescom in Cologne to Tokyo Game Show (TGS), the presence of Chinese game companies is no longer just an "exotic embellishment" in the corner of the exhibition hall. Instead, they are gradually stepping into the spotlight and becoming the focus of global players' discussions. For example, at the TGS that concluded on the 28th, Papergames occupied the main passage of the central exhibition hall. In this "prime C - position", its games Love and the Sky and Forever Nuan Nuan were warmly pursued by on - site players.

There were over 1,000 exhibitors at TGS this year, and foreign media estimated that the number of visitors would exceed 300,000, breaking the historical record. Papergames' presence at the central booth not only means traffic but also implies being in the spotlight of global players, the media, and the industry.

Before this, Papergames had already achieved many international feats. For instance, Love and the Sky won the Best Mobile Game Award at Gamescom, shattering the long - standing stereotype that "female - oriented games" couldn't win international awards due to their niche nature.

Another product, Forever Nuan Nuan, won the "Gold Hall of Fame Award" from the Japanese media "Fami通" and the Apple Design Award for "Visuals & Graphics" — it is also the only Chinese product to win an Apple - related award this year.

In the market, Papergames is known as the game company that "understands women the best". The online sales of its merchandise once exceeded that of the popular Pop Mart during the 618 shopping festival. In the industry, it is listed alongside miHoYo, Lilith Games, and Hypergryph as the "Four Little Dragons of Shanghai", representing a high - end benchmark in Shanghai's content industry.

To secure the central position at the world - class TGS, it relies on the continuous influence accumulated by the two products over the past year. This is not "luck" but a "result"; it is not a "flash - in - the - pan" but an "inflection point".

Has Papergames "won big"?

At this TGS, Papergames showcased two of its flagship products, Love and the Sky and Forever Nuan Nuan. Among them, Love and the Sky is a 3D dating mobile game that Papergames launched in open beta last year. Through first - person perspective performances, highly realistic interactions, and multi - sensory gameplay, it presents a set of high - quality game content, refreshing many people's understanding of female - oriented games.

Just as it was a hit at Gamescom, Love and the Sky still attracted the most female players on - site. To avoid the long queues of players from affecting the traffic in the venue, an online reservation system was implemented this time.

Interestingly, even though Papergames used the reservation method to try to "cool down" the players' enthusiasm for queuing, after a fan - made poster of Papergames' CEO, Yao Runhao, appeared at the TGS site, players queued up spontaneously to take photos. On social media, Yao Runhao was jokingly called a person with "superb career luck" because of the popularity of the products he developed. Therefore, players came to the site to take photos with this symbol of "career luck".

Moreover, when Love and the Sky was launched last year, it was described by local media as the "Chinese dating game boom" and even made it onto the top - rated Japanese news program 日テレNEWS NNN.

During major traditional festivals, Love and the Sky demonstrated strong cultural dissemination capabilities. During the Spring Festival in 2025, the game incorporated traditional Chinese New Year symbols such as Luoyang palace lanterns, paper - cuts, and Spring Festival couplets into the plot. Players could make six - sided palace lanterns with the male characters, and the silhouettes on the lanterns were reproduced 1:1 according to traditional patterns.

As the Mid - Autumn Festival approaches in China recently, Love and the Sky has collaborated with intangible cultural heritage mooncakes, and many overseas players are already drooling over mooncakes.

Many foreign players also started discussing the meanings behind the Chinese names of the characters and the symbolic significance of palace lanterns in Chinese traditional culture.

Combined with its performance at Gamescom last month, it is not difficult to see that Love and the Sky has a large number of audiences in both the European, American, and Asian markets, appealing to users with different cultural backgrounds and aesthetic preferences.

Forever Nuan Nuan also enjoys similar global market popularity. In front of the "Famous World Paintings Wall" at this year's TGS, players of different ethnicities gathered together, and there were also many photos of players with the on - site Nuan Nuan dolls on social media.

Going back to the Spring Festival at the beginning of this year, overseas players even voluntarily dressed the characters in cheongsams, Hanfu, or pipa - themed outfits that symbolize Chinese elements, which shows its influence.

Some people point out that Papergames' approach is a "emotion - first" cultural export path: first, establish an emotional connection with users through excellent character design, storytelling, and art, and then introduce cultural content, reducing the cognitive threshold for overseas players. However, others argue that it is essentially "quality - oriented". As long as the products are recognized, players will naturally become curious, leading to cultural penetration.

Regardless of the reason, it is certain that Papergames has really achieved great success in the past two years, and so have Chinese games.

Pure gaming experience and the rising "She Economy"

Many people instinctively think that Papergames, which mainly serves female users, owes its current achievements to the rise of the "She Economy".

Papergames was founded in 2013. Relying on the "Nuan Nuan" series of IPs, it quickly established a foothold in the domestic game market. In the early days, there was a joking comparison on the Internet: "Barbie in the West, Hatsune Miku in Japan, and Nuan Nuan in China." Later, with Love and Producer, it pioneered the "Chinese dating games for women" genre.

Around 2020, the "home - economy" emerged, and the ambitious "Four Little Dragons of Shanghai" all started to expand their territories. Naturally, Papergames, which holds the two major IPs of "Nuan Nuan" and "Love and Producer", was no exception. They advanced aggressively. Just the products they have revealed later include Forever Nuan Nuan, Love and the Sky, Thousand Faces, and Contract with All Things. Most of these are high - investment products with long development cycles.

Some people believe that Papergames caught the wave of the rising "She Economy" in the past two years. With the improvement of content quality and the diversified development of forms, more and more female users have a stronger willingness to pay and a greater demand for emotional content than before.

According to statistics from Gamma Data, the market size of Chinese female - oriented games is expected to reach 8 billion yuan in 2024, a year - on - year increase of 124.1%, making it the fastest - growing segment in the game industry. At the same time, "emotional value" and "emotional companionship" have become the primary reasons for female players to pay, accounting for 50.8%. The 2025 Z - Generation Emotional Consumption Report also shows that "emotional value" and "emotional companionship" are the reasons for female players to pay, accounting for 50.8%.

The success of Love and the Sky and Forever Nuan Nuan is also regarded as a typical example of the "She Economy" benefiting the game industry.

Industry analysis points out that with the rise of the global female consumer market and the explosion of the demand for emotional - value consumption, female - oriented games are becoming a new "growth pole" for game exports. In recent years, a group of Chinese game companies, represented by Papergames, have seized the opportunity of the "She Economy". They have built barriers through top - notch art, self - developed technology, and immersive experiences, and continuously created phenomenal blockbusters.

That is to say, Papergames has used the "She Economy" to take a shortcut in exporting Chinese culture overseas, and has become one of the leading companies in the global female - oriented game market. It also proves that "female - oriented" has never been a niche label for self - entertainment.

Two years after its launch, Love and the Sky has accumulated global revenues of over 5 billion yuan and a user base of over 70 million. Papergames has been short - listed for the list of key national cultural export enterprises four times. During this period, its products have topped the global App Store best - selling list multiple times, and it is one of the very few products whose overseas and domestic server revenues contribute almost equally.

Some players at TGS also commented that "these games are purer and more powerful".

Fun and more in tune with players

It is worth pondering where this "purity" and "power" specifically come from.

Actually, in many scenarios, Papergames doesn't consider itself a "female - oriented" game company. Or rather, Papergames doesn't only focus on female - oriented games.

This is essentially a matter of perspective. In most cases, "female - oriented" games lack a clear - cut definition. If we define it as a "product specifically for female users", it's no different from classifying all game genres such as MOBA, FPS, and MMO as "male - oriented" games. However, these games actually have quite a few female players.

The founder, Yao Runhao, once said, "I don't understand female users as well as people think. In fact, I even think I don't understand them. If you respect women, you naturally won't think you know them well."

As for the reason, the view of Zuan Ka, the creator of The Sultan's Game, might resonate. Putting aside gender, men and women are not that different. "Women also desire to become stronger in games, gain pleasure through operations, achieve a sense of accomplishment through strategies, and establish connections through social interactions." That is to say, a real "female - oriented" game often discards gender differences and packages good design and content in a form that female users are willing to accept.

As an ACT game, Thousand Faces adds many softened martial - arts aesthetic expressions on the basis of action elements. As an open - world game, Forever Nuan Nuan has a design for changing beautiful clothes compared to common adventure games. In fact, they don't solely target "women". Besides, aren't there many male players who are keen on "raising a daughter" in games?

All along, Papergames has aimed to serve its current users well and attempt to create great games that offer something different.

Initially, Yao Runhao and his wife, Zheng Jie, who is good at fashion design, hit it off and created Nuan Nuan's Fashion Story, which features dressing - up as the core gameplay.

After the success of the "Nuan Nuan" IP, Papergames gradually built its female - user ecosystem and company team. At that time, Yao Runhao was the only male core executive in and outside of Papergames. The subsequent Love and Producer was also developed based on its target audience.

In the subsequent Forever Nuan Nuan and Thousand Faces, we can see that Papergames hopes to package mainstream gameplay in a form acceptable to female users and then offer good game products to players.

Simply put, "serving female users" is in Papergames' DNA, while "creating great products" is the ultimate goal of the company — which is also the goal of every game creator.

Yao Runhao once summarized Papergames' philosophy in one sentence: When others think things must be a certain way, they provide an alternative option of "it can also be like this".

This statement is easy to understand. When others thought that girls didn't like playing games, Papergames created a globally - recognized female - oriented game with over 70 million cumulative users. When others thought that girls only liked dating simulation games, they incorporated combat, adventure, and puzzle - solving elements into their products. Just like the rise of the "She Economy", the low presence of female users in the market in the past might not be because they were not suitable for the market but because they had no choices.

Therefore, Papergames has provided an option — and even a good one — for female players around the world.

For example, Love and the Sky has invested a huge amount of money in the immersive experience that female users care more about. To present realistic skin textures and character expressions, the team used an array of over 50 cameras to capture high - precision muscle - simulation and shape - change data. To ensure lip - syncing in multiple languages around the world, they spent two years scanning millions of frames of data from more than 30 actors with different native languages and independently developed a multi - language lip - sync generation system.

Papergames might be the only one in the world that is willing and capable of achieving such high - level details in expressions, skin, and lip - syncing.

Conclusion

Yao Runhao's philosophy of "it can also be like this" might be inspired by many successful classic products in the market. For example, Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey are products that make people exclaim "games can be made like this".

However, it might not be easy to follow this path.

In an internal letter at the end of last year, Yao Runhao also encouraged the company's employees. Creating a game that offers an alternative option requires great courage and patience. "But if no team is willing to do such a thing, won't even the game field, which is supposed to be fun, become rigid and dull?"

This statement might also apply to every Chinese game company on the journey. After paying great courage and patience, Black Myth: Wukong has sparked a global "Chinese single - player game fever", and Delta Squad has proven that we are not lacking in the design level of FPS games comparable to the world's best, and we are even leading overseas manufacturers in some aspects of game design.

Forever Nuan Nuan and Love and the Sky have demonstrated the competitiveness of Chinese developers in content export and cultural heritage. When it comes to specific terms, we can choose Chinese transliteration instead of adapting Chinese to the overseas context. The characters' names can also retain the traditional Chinese expression of surname before given name. Eventually, people have found that Chinese game companies can actually do localization for overseas markets in this alternative way.

With the successful conclusion of TGS, perhaps it's time for game players around the world to be amazed by Papergames.

(Source: 36Kr Game)