Chinese game companies going global are entering the AI era. To break into the global market, they need stronger AI capabilities.

Text | Liu Shiwu

After most large global game companies have "moved to the cloud", more and more game studios are starting to apply AI technology to the entire development and distribution process as much as possible. The game industry is undergoing a dual upgrade in technology and creativity.

"Currently, 62% of game studios have applied AI technology to the entire development process, and generative AI has helped improve development efficiency by 30%." At the Unite Shanghai 2025 conference held on October 23, 2025, Li Jian, the General Manager of the Industry Cluster in China at Amazon Web Services, shared a set of industry data. At this conference, Amazon Web Services also announced that its game hosting service Amazon GameLift Server and game intelligent agent AI Bot service will be among the first partners to enter the Unity China Resource Store.

Li Jian, General Manager of the Industry Cluster in China at Amazon Web Services (Source: UNITE 2025)

In fact, with the normalization of game license approvals in China in recent years, the Chinese game industry has entered a new active period. Due to the fierce competition in the domestic market, more and more game products are looking towards the global market.

Meanwhile, the maturity of AI has also given game companies going global more diverse and convenient options. As a leading cloud computing and overseas expansion service provider with long - term experience in the game industry, Amazon Web Services hopes to deeply integrate generative AI with game engines to create more possibilities for developers. Strengthening the integration with leading engine ecosystems in the form of plugins is an important step in its AI layout.

AI Becomes the Key to Breaking the Deadlock in Game Overseas Expansion

"Many Chinese game clients I've contacted, influenced by the domestic users' payment habits and the intense competition in the domestic game industry, find that overseas markets are either a must - expand area or the only area to focus on." Li Jian described the current situation of Chinese game companies going global at a media communication meeting. Going global for Chinese game companies has changed from an "optional choice" to a "must - have choice", and even the "only choice" for some companies.

As the scale of game overseas expansion expands, the challenges are also escalating, especially in terms of local operation. For example, in regions like the Middle East, there are huge cultural differences. A slight oversight in game content may violate local cultural taboos, leading to the game being taken off the shelves. The introduction of AI not only brings solutions but also increases the complexity of content control.

Huang Zhuobin, the Director of the Solution Architecture for the Game Industry at Amazon Web Services, pointed out: "During global operation, there are multiple languages in Southeast Asia, and players need to communicate in various languages. When communicating with players in the Arab and European regions, many cross - cultural conflicts need to be considered, which is much more complex than developing games in China."

In response to this pain point, Amazon Web Services provides a special solution for AI security and compliance. Li Jian introduced: "Amazon Bedrock provides a Guardrails function, which can filter out pornographic, political, and terrorist - related words while generating content materials." This function filters content at both the input and output ends to ensure that the AI - generated content complies with local laws and cultural requirements.

Li Jian, General Manager of the Industry Cluster in China at Amazon Web Services

At the infrastructure level, Amazon Web Services' global basic network provides a fundamental guarantee for game overseas expansion. For example, the domestic party game "Beast Party", which once entered the top 3 on the global Steam list, used Amazon GameLift Server to launch simultaneously in 9 regions around the world. The online shooting game "Apex Legend", with millions of players, completed the global player traffic switch in just 10 days through GameLift Servers.

02 From Cost Reduction and Efficiency Improvement to Gameplay Innovation

"The changes brought by AI to the game industry are ahead of most other industries." Li Jian said that game companies' focus on AI has shifted from "how to achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement through cloud computing, such as code suggestions and intelligent customer service" to "more focus on what improvements generative AI can bring to game product design and planning, such as level balance and intelligent NPCs."

In 2025, AI is changing from an auxiliary tool in game development to a driver of the core game experience, bringing capabilities including but not limited to level balance and embedding AI - generated content into games. The first AI game "Whispers of the Stars" launched by Anuttacon, a company founded by Cai Haoyu, the co - founder of miHoYo, was developed using relevant technologies from Amazon Web Services. This game, centered on "AI - driven open - ended interaction", is demonstrating how AI can change the traditional game interaction mode.

AI - DLC (AI - driven development lifecycle) is becoming a new paradigm in game development. In this paradigm, AI becomes the driving force for the entire development process, leading the complete development process including product planning, architecture suggestions, task decomposition, and code writing. Humans focus on verification, decision - making, and supervision.

Based on this concept, Amazon Web Services has launched Kiro, an integrated development environment specifically designed for AI Agents. Huang Zhuobin explained: "Kiro introduces the 'Spec - driven' (requirements - oriented development) concept, which is a groundbreaking concept proposed for the first time. AI is the core generator, while humans are responsible for providing requirements, reviewing, making decisions, and supervising."

In the field of game growth, AI is also changing the traditional rules. Huang Zhuobin shared a case: "One of our game clients in the eastern region is using an AI suite to estimate game materials and judge whether the newly launched game materials will be popular in the market." Against the backdrop of increasing customer acquisition costs, AI can help game companies select more promising materials and improve the return on marketing investment.

Amazon Web Services provides generative AI services at three levels: the bottom layer is the infrastructure including NVIDIA AI chips and self - developed chips; the middle layer is AI & Agent development software and services, such as Amazon Bedrock, which offers a wide range of model choices; the upper layer is application tools including Amazon Q and Kiro.

Based on these three - layer generative AI services, the solution asset library for the game industry at Amazon Web Services has become a "shortcut" for small and medium - sized game companies. Li Jian said: "We collect customer needs and develop a 'solution asset', which you can think of as a rough - finished house. Customers can 'decorate' it according to their own needs." This approach enables small and medium - sized game companies to keep up with the generative AI trend at a relatively low cost.

With the arrival of the AI Agent era, the threshold for game development is decreasing, while the ceiling of game experience is constantly rising. Huang Zhuobin said: "Previously, you might need to hire a person to write Go language and another to write Java. Now, Amazon Q Developer itself can help you complete this work."

The Chinese game industry is standing at the crossroads of technology and globalization. Both large - scale game companies and small and medium - sized development teams can find their positions in the global market driven by AI and cloud computing.

The next - generation competition in the game industry will not only be a competition of creativity but also a comprehensive competition of technology application and global operation capabilities.