Octopath Traveler was a JRPG that debuted on the Nintendo Switch in 2018. It met with a lot of positive numbers, was a critical and commercial success and was seen as a jewel for the Nintendo Switch. The game was recently announced to be making its way to China, a country revered for its heavy censorship and lack of approach to video games. It seems that the Chinese people welcomed the game with open arms as all units meant for China sold out to a single distributor in minutes!
The game will reach China through its PC version, which was announced earlier this year.
Octopath Traveler makes its way due East
A single brick & mortar game store (that also sells games online) in Shanghai ordered 2,640 copies. Prices have been hiking on Taobao.
This is a very remarkable achievement for a country where the game is not officially distributed and few official advertisements are present.
— Chinese Nintendo (@chinesenintendo) April 15, 2019
You can see that while 32,000 might be an abysmal number, you must also consider how tough it is for a video game to have any footing at all in China.
The country is well known for its heavy rating systems, approach to censorship and other ways of controlling the content that consumers could be exposed to. While Octopath Traveler has nothing which should otherwise be a barrier for entering in China, It is good to see that there are gamers willing to support developers in the country.
The patch will go live on June 7th and will allow for players to experience the game in simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. China is still one of the few countries in the world where gaming is at a very difficult position. It was only recently that Nintendo is entering China’s market with the Nintendo Switch with some help from Tencent.