In recent years, Chinese gaming has become internationally well-known for mobile titles like Rise of Kingdoms or cross-platform RPGs like Black Myth: Wukong. However, long before PS5 sales skyrocketed in China or Genshin Impact creator Mihoyo began holding events worldwide, PC games were China’s bread and butter.
During my four years in China (2016–2020), it was normal to see internet cafes filled with computers, gamers, and a snack hall attached.
Over the past decade, as phones became more advanced and companies realized there was money to be made internationally, the Chinese gaming industry tilted in favor of mobile games. However, the success of Black Myth: Wukong and the belief that mobile games have reached their ceiling is leading Chinese companies to return their attention to PC games.
In 2024, I published an article on advertising PC games in China; today, I’d like to examine how to use WeChat for the same purpose.
Marketing PC Games on WeChat
WeChat is China’s number one social messaging app for communication, paying bills, purchasing train tickets, and much more. Because of the app’s multifunctionality, it’s no wonder that companies see it as one of the best places to advertise their products.
Before we go over WeChat’s features, however, we will need to discuss the two types of marketing companies can do and the regulations (or lack thereof) around them.
Types of Marketing on WeChat
Your company has two options for promoting a PC game on WeChat:
- Organic Marketing: Less hassle and time required to register for the necessary documents. Companies can set up accounts on WeChat to publish videos and articles or partner with influencers/other accounts on the app to promote themselves. The downside is that you will be unable to publish actual advertisements.
- Organic Marketing + Advertising: This method entails all of the above, but now you can place actual advertisements. The downside is that you’ll need to partner with a local publisher so they can file for an ISBN and copyright. In my last gaming article, I mentioned a few. Unfortunately, this process can take six months or longer.
If you are a larger gaming company, you could contact Tencent (WeChat’s parent company) or Mihoyo. While Nanjing Marketing Group cannot file for the paperwork for Method #2, we can help smaller enterprises with Method #1.
Therefore, in this article, we will mainly focus on Method #1, though we will also provide some details on advertising.
Important: If you’d rather partner with a smaller company instead of Tencent (which may result in easier communication), we can help you do this.
With this said, let’s go over the different features on WeChat your company can use to do organic marketing.
Official Accounts
Official Accounts are like any company account on social media, but are more important in China than a Facebook or an X page in the West.
Unlike their counterparts in Europe, North America, or Japan in the 1990s and early 2000s, most people in China did not have access to a home computer. China only rejoined the international economy in 1979, and the country had a long way to go before becoming what it is today.
One result of this delayed entry into the digital age was that when the country’s economic boom in the 2000s began to coincide with the adoption of smartphones, Chinese individuals began to use the new technology in their daily lives to a greater extent than people in other nations who had become more dependent on computers the decade before.
As a result, while North Americans and Western Europeans were acquainted with different websites for banks and shopping, the Chinese favored apps.
WeChat was the app that rose to the top due to its multi-functionality, and its internal Official Accounts served in place of websites.
Official Accounts managed in China are 300 RMB per year. Overseas accounts cost 99 USD per year. (See here for more information on setting up an Official Account.)
Similar to a website, companies can choose to make an Official Account for their company or a specific game. Below is a screenshot of the Official Account for the Taiwanese game series Legend of Sword & Fairy followed by one belonging to Activision Blizzard.
As you can see, there are several components to an Official Account.
WeChat Articles
Official Accounts offer many features, and the most prominent is the ability to publish four articles a month.
What type of content may you want to include in your articles?
Anything! In case you need some ideas, here is a list of a few topics you may want to focus on:
- Game updates
- Tips and tricks
- Information about the company
- People who worked on the game
- Arts and crafts
- Fan art
- What inspired the game?
- New outfits (in-game purchases)
Here is a popular article for Netease’s Where Winds Meet highlighting an outfit just released.
The significance of game outfits should not be underestimated as a lot of revenue comes from in-game purchases. While working at a Chinese gaming company, I’d always be surprised how much players spent on new costumes.
WeChat Article Ads (*Publisher Collaboration Required)
Instead of setting up your own Official Account, you may wish to place ads in other accounts’ articles. However, remember what I said earlier about needing to partner with a publisher in China to do this.
If you successfully get the paperwork to advertise on WeChat, the next step involves setting up an Advertising Account. This will allow you to place video or picture ads in the middle of an article or as a footer.
WeChat Official Account ads provide purchasing options based on exposure scheduling and competition, using a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) model and a cost-per-click (CPC) option. Additionally, these ads can be optimized using WeChat’s system, OCPM, and OCPC (with “O” signifying “optimized”); however, automated optimization tends to be less effective than management by a professional account handler.
WeChat Channels
Next to “Articles,” there’s a “Channels” feature where companies can post short videos.
More on “Channels” later in the article.
WeChat Account Services
Last, you may wish to take advantage of the “Services” tab to leave links to an official website or provide information about applying for a job. Legend of Sword & Fairy even uses this tab to publish weekly comics related to the game.
Collaborate With Game-Related Official Accounts
Instead of setting up your Official Account, you could collaborate with a company or individual with a sizeable following in the gaming community.
We can help you contact these accounts if you wish to advertise with them.
WeChat Moments (*Publisher Collaboration Required)
“Moments” can be considered WeChat’s home page and acts like a type of wall where anyone connected through the app can post pictures or personal thoughts.
Apart from messaging, Moments is WeChat’s most used feature, and Tencent (WeChat’s owner) states users glance at their Moments about eight times a day.
Companies can create ads that will show up on the Moments interface.
Unfortunately, Moments ads are another feature companies will need to partner with a publisher in China to access.
Ads will only appear after a user has seen four posts from their friends and disappear after six hours.
As a company, these ads can be used for a few reasons:
- Brand promotion
- Sales leads
- App downloads
- Directing users to your WeChat Official Account or website
Chinese users need WeChat to survive in the modern world. By properly utilizing ads, you can make it easier for users to transition to other places related to your business, whether that’s Steam or your official website.
Ads placed in Moments are interactive, meaning users can comment on or like them.
WeChat Moments Ad Metrics
WeChat—like other social media apps—caters its ads based on user data, and as the super app is used for all activities, it is capable of helping companies target the right consumers.
You’ll also be able to control the following metrics:
- Location
- Age
- Gender
- Marital status
- Interests
- Phone model
- Behavior
- Education
- Time
For location, companies can select a center point and the ad will be shown to anyone within a radius of a few miles. Only people who have lived in the designated area for more than a month will be targeted. Behavior deals with their recent activity: “Have they applied for anything of late?” Finally, time is when you want the ad to appear.
WeChat Moment Ad Costs
Chinese cities are categorized based on their level of development, so the cost of posting a WeChat Moment ad will depend on the city. (You can learn more about China’s city tier system here.)
| City Type | Min. Cost/1000 Impressions | Max. Cost/1000 Impressions |
| Core | 100￥ | 600￥ |
| Key | 60￥ | 400￥ |
| Normal | 30￥ | 400￥ |
Core: Beijing and Shanghai
Key: Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wuhan, and other capital cities
Normal: Other cities
Types of WeChat Moments Ads
WeChat ads can have text, videos, a single image, or a photo gallery, and the best ads resemble normal posts (they blend in better).
Moments ads can come in nine types.
- Original: A single picture with some words.
- Window: A collection of different photos.
- Modular: A larger photo, with words underneath. Option to add a “Buy” button.
- Full Service: Short video clip with words over the top.
- Brand Gallery: Slideshow of photos.
- Out of Frame: More dynamic picture.
- IP Interactive: Companies can include branding elements, like a mascot, and allow users to interact with them.
- Carousel: Pictures are presented in a carousel.
- Panorama: Panoramic presentation of pictures.
Mini Programs
Companies that want an even bigger presence on WeChat should look into mini-programs (apps within WeChat).
Per year, they will cost
- 300 RMB to register a mini-program,
- 50–100 RMB for a domain name, and
- 1500–2000 RMB for a server.
Below are a few mini-programs related to Black Myth: Wukong, which are just online guides for players wishing to understand the game more. These may be unofficial, but your game company can use them as examples of what you could do in the future.
While mostly a mobile game, Honor of Kings can also offer some lessons about how gaming companies can use WeChat’s mini-programs. In the example below, there are two mini-programs associated with the game.
The first is more of a social add-on that lets players share achievements from the game, either videos or images of their scores, with their WeChat friends.
Users share game content within the mini-app
A video stream devoted to just the game
The other is an event mini-app that invites players to claim daily rewards related to the game.
You may even want to be more creative with your advertising.
For example, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art created a mini-program a few years ago where users could explore the museum with an audio guide.
While not exactly part of the gaming industry, your company could still try a similar approach.
Let’s say your game is based on real-world places or history; you could create a mini-program where users visit the locations that inspired (or were featured) in the game, and include some music, or spoken word audio explaining the relationship to the plot.
After all, Black Myth: Wukong was a success in China not merely because of its gameplay. It incentivized local fans to visit the locations that inspired the level designs, and made international players more interested in visiting China.
You may even want to go one step further and make a mini-program game months before the release of your actual PC title. This way, players will have a taste for the real thing beforehand.
In the next section, I’ll explain why mini-games may be a good route for your marketing campaign.
Mini-Program Games
It may be a good idea to set up a mini-game mini-program for WeChat because this feature has been seeing a lot of growth in recent years. As Pocket Game wrote in a recent article:
“Mini-program mobile games (mostly known as Weixin/WeChat Minigames) generated $2.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2024 in China, up 60% year over year.
From this number, $1.25 billion was IAP revenue, an 81% growth rate, and $1.03 billion was ad revenue, a 40% growth rate. For comparison, the overall Chinese games market had a revenue of $20.3 billion in the first half of the year, with 674 million users.
The expected MAU of the minigame market will exceed 500 million users in China this year, with an average daily play session of 60 minutes per day per user. These minigames are produced very fast (two to three months) by small teams ranging from five to 30 people, with the development cost around $140K per one minigame.”
Game companies that make mini-games as a WeChat mini-program have two options:
- Normal mini-game: For example, What’s the Point? (玩个儿手线) is a simple game where players draw pictures by matching colored threads.
- Creative mini-game: Games that spend more time on storytelling, gameplay, art, and music. A good example is Wuxia Heroes (武侠大明星), a game with characters and narrative.
When it comes to what type of game you’d like to make to advertise your more complex PC game, the choice is up to you. A normal mini-game that focuses on simple mechanics and allows WeChat friends to compete against one another for the highest score may require less work than the second option.
As we saw in Pocket Gamer’s article, the cost of making these games is significantly less than a PC game.
WeChat, like Google Play Store or App Store, has its own internal rankings for mini-games. As we see below, most of the games in the rankings are “casual” (休闲).
Fast food chain KFC is a great example of a company building brand awareness using WeChat mini-games. In 2019, the chain created a mini-program game where netizens could make their own store.
The game aspect of this campaign was simple. Once a WeChat user logged into the game, they needed to decorate their store and design their own waiter. Friends could then visit one another’s stores, and make purchases to receive rebates in the real world.
You could also go even simpler than this. Another game KFC released on WeChat was Asteroids, just with their IP in the form of a KFC food delivery boy.
Mini-Program Ads (*Publisher Collaboration Required)
Companies also can place ads in mini-programs, though they will need to work with a publisher to do this.
Like with Official Accounts, ads appear whenever a user makes a purchase using a mini-program.
Ads will also appear sometimes when a user is moving from one interface of a mini-app to another.
As mentioned earlier, many WeChat mini-programs are identical to mobile games. As such, you can pay other developers to place ads in their games in the same way we see companies pay mobile gaming companies worldwide.
One-off scheduled ads cost 1,000 RMB, whereas exposure ads (CPC/CPM) cost 50 RMB per day.
Below are some options for the types of ads you can place in min-programs:
Banner Ads
These ads will pop up (the mini-program developer will determine where) on the screen while a user plays a mini-game on WeChat, much like in normal apps.
Based on each user’s ad click or every 1,000 valid ad impressions, the platform charges a fee and shares it with the traffic owner (the ad fee collection method depends on the pricing method chosen by the advertiser).
Creative mini-games: Developers can receive 70% of the daily ad revenue (within two million RMB); for revenue exceeding two million RMB, developers can receive 50%, with no upper limit.
Regular mini-games: Developers receive 50% of the daily ad revenue, with no upper limit.
Reward Ads
Mini-games on WeChat are similar to mobile games in that they heavily rely on a gacha system where players need to collect resources that can be spent to get better items. Players with less patience or more money can skip the grind by paying for items, which increases player retention and helps gaming companies make money on their free games.
Another option is partnering with other companies to place ads within their games, and any players who choose to watch these ads get in-game items or currency in return.
For every 1,000 valid ad impressions, the platform charges the ad fee and shares it with the traffic owner.
Keep in mind that the ads will be at different prices depending on the type of mini-game you create.
Creative mini-games: Developers can receive 70% of the daily ad revenue (within two million RMB); for revenue exceeding two million RMB, developers can receive 50%, with no upper limit.
Regular mini-games: Developers receive 50% of the daily ad revenue, with no upper limit.
Interstitial Ads
These ads will appear at natural transition points in the user experience journey, like when a player moves from one interface to another.
For every 1,000 valid ad impressions, the platform charges the ad fee and shares it with the traffic owner.
Creative mini-games: Developers can receive 70% of the daily ad revenue (within two million RMB); for revenue exceeding two million RMB, developers can receive 50%, with no upper limit.
Regular mini-games: Developers receive 50% of the monthly ad revenue, with no upper limit.
WeChat Channels
While it may be an easy comparison, there is one big difference between WeChat Channels and TikTok.
Channels does not have a “For You” page; instead, a user sees two feeds—one for videos friends have shared or interacted with and one for videos shared by Official Accounts/Channels you follow.
This arrangement means you put more effort into advertising via WeChat’s other features.
Making Content for WeChat Channels
Content creation for WeChat Channels is very much the same as TikTok. Try to stick to promoting your brand, but also be aware of trending topics so that your videos can get more traction.
As a gaming company, your first choice may be short videos showcasing upcoming titles, like this brief clip of Where Winds Meet.
If your company has already released a game in another country, you could also post videos of real-life promotional events. You may even give a video tour of your office or interview people who worked on your game.
Some of the best videos reference meme culture or take advantage of holidays, like the one below, which features a Chinese Lunar New Year animal dancing to a popular song.
The image below features a character wearing different outfits and showing affection to fans for Valentine’s Day.
You can also have game characters act goofy alongside a trending meme. In the image below, a game is advertised using a clip from the TV show Stranger Things.
Companies that have truly nailed the down-to-earth marketing style of TikTok in Western countries will know how to use WeChat Channels. At the end of the day, this type of marketing is all about consistent content that reminds consumers you are there.
Collaborating With WeChat Channels
Like with Official Accounts on WeChat, companies can also choose to work with established Channels. The luxury of this approach is that there are far more people making videos about gaming on the app than writing articles on the topic.
There are Channels with hundreds of thousands of followers and other more niche accounts; therefore, (like with TikTok, Instagram, or any other video-based app) companies should think about their target market before contacting influencers on WeChat.
Sometimes, it is better to find anchors who talk about your particular style of game to a smaller audience than a Channel that caters to a wider, more general audience.
WeChat Channels Ads (*Publisher Collaboration Required)
Channel videos can also be used to place ads, but you’ll need to work with a publisher and set up an advertising account.
Once you have done this, there are two ways you can place ads in videos:
- An overlay at the bottom of a video
By tapping on the green button, the user gets taken to a company’s website or Official Account.
Below is an ad for League of Legends.
- A Video comment
Costs for scheduled ads start from 50,000 RMB (~7,000 USD) one-off and exposure ads (CPC/CPM) start from 50 RMB (~7 USD) per day.
Want to know more? You can find a detailed setup tutorial for ads here.
WeChat Search
One last thing to mention is that WeChat has its own search feature to better organize everything in its ecosystem.
WeChat SEO
Like with search engine optimization (SEO) anywhere else, WeChat prioritizes keywords.
Here are a few important keywords for PC games:
- Game/Gaming – 游戏
- Computer – 电脑
- Action – 动作类
- Adventure – 冒险类
- RPG (role-playing game) – 角色扮演游戏
- Strategy – 策略类
- Sports – 体育类
- Puzzle – 解谜类
- Visual novel – 视觉小说
Similar to videos on TikTok, these keywords can be added to a video’s description to make it easier to find.
When it comes to articles, WeChat Search is very good at scanning both the titles as well as the internal content.
WeChat Search (like Google) has a drop-down menu that allows users to focus their search.
For those companies that wish to really take control of their SEO, WeChat Index (微信指数) may come in handy.
This keyword search mini-program provides data on how often users have searched for keywords over a certain period. Below I searched for “Black Myth: Wukong.”
Summary of Pricing
The above is a lot to take in, but to help, I’ve attached this chart my colleague included in a previous article. Remember that you can’t make these ads without applying for an ISBN and copyright through a domestic publisher.
Contact Us
The Chinese gaming business might be in its infancy, but things are really starting to heat up (think Japan in the 1980s and 1990s!).
Are you a gaming company or developer looking to capitalize on this emerging industry? Want to get your game(s) in the list of WeChat’s most-played mini-games?
Our cross-cultural team (North America and China) understands both sides of the cultural coin and is ready to help you get started.