Pokémon Go! for China announced then unannounced

Wake me up before ya' Pokémon Go! go

In a flush of mildly titillating corporate intrigue, hopes for Pokémon Go!’s release in China have come and gone yet again, but the prospect for an augmented reality of magic critter collection and conflict still lingers.

A January 2 post by the Financial Times reported that the popular mobile game would finally release in China thanks to a partnership between Pokémon Go! developer Niantic and Chinese company NetEase. However, in a statement to the Global Times on the same day, NetEase debunked the claims that it plans to help Niantic release the game in China.

The Financial Times post cites Niantic CEO John Hanke saying his company 'absolutely intends to bring our existing games into China,' and NetEase’s recent and unspecified monetary investment into Niantic. Those two facts can indeed foreshadow an impending Chinese release for Pokémon Go!, but they are neither an explicit contract nor a guarantee.

As with many foreign ventures in China, bringing a blockbuster video game to the Middle Kingdom requires a local partner to assist in localisation and meeting government rules. These are hurdles that are easily worth hopping for any large video game companies, especially with a booming consumer market in view.

_{Photo: wowchina.com.}

Research firm Newzoo forecasts almost 33 billion USD in revenue for China’s video games industry in 2017, the most in the world. NetEase itself is responsible for bringing globally popular titles like World of Warcraft and Overwatch to Chinese cyberspace. So a company like NetEase would be the one to help Niantic bring Pokémon Go! to China to rake in the RMB.

The biggest hurdle for Pokémon Go!’s China release is the game’s reliance on the banned-in-China Google Maps tech to blend reality with Japan’s pinnacle achievement in global soft power. Knowing Niantic CEO’s stated intentions to make it to China and corporations’ tendency to love money, gamers in China can safely assume that they are working on a way around it.

Maybe one day the game’s China version will use Baidu Maps, or even Bing Maps, and users will be fishing for Gyarados while scaling the Great Wall. It’s just a matter of time, and how many ultra rare foil cards Niantic are willing to trade to China’s internet tzars.

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