I recently read a note in CNN news about what apps teens use in the US. I thought she was extremely curious. I think I will satisfy the interest of foreigners, talking about applications and games used by the Chinese.

In China, users in an application ecosystem are divided mainly into geographic and age groups. In this article I will tell only about applications for the age group "from 20 to 50" from the cities of the first and second categories. In such cities, the standard of living is close to the standards of developed countries.

In this article, I will introduce you only to applications installed in 8 out of 10 phones. In order not to waste time on explanations, such applications will be marked with a golden frame. This means that such applications are super popular and can be found in almost every phone.
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A pink frame will indicate a similar non-Chinese application not used in China.

Messengers

Both WeChat (微 信) and QQ are released by the mobile giant Tencent. WeChat is similar in functions to WhatsApp. But this is a huge application with many extensions: it has the functions of a social network called “Circle of Friends” (朋友 圈), which is very similar to Facebook. There are many social networks, photo sharing platforms and microblogging in China, but they all became almost inactive after the distribution of WeChat.

Another important WeChat feature is the built-in e-wallet, which can be used according to the “touched-paid” principle in most retail stores, as well as making online purchases and purchases in applications. Recently, Tencent has aggressively advertised the WeChat wallet, providing with every purchase subsidies for both the store and customers.

From the example of WeChat and other applications, which I will discuss below, you will understand that Chinese applications are striving for an all-in-one approach.

QQ is more used on desktop computers in offices. Competition and WeChat are exactly the same as Skype and WhatsApp in the West. People install QQ on phones mainly to communicate on work issues.

Wallets and financial applications

For financial issues, most people install Alipay (宝) and their bank application. Alipay is another comprehensive application, with it you can do the same thing with Android Pay and PayPal. In addition, you can pay for all kinds of services: electricity and gas, bills for communications, etc.

Alipay works almost like a bank, all banking functions are available: withdrawal and deposit of funds, transfer of money to another person’s bank account, purchase of securities and insurance, etc.

Alipay's largest Chinese competitor as a virtual wallet is a WeChat wallet.


In most stores you can find such an icon for Alipay and WaChat wallets, you can pay for the purchase by scanning the code.

Alipay has countless extensions. For example, it has an instant messenger like WeChat, there is also a page for finding restaurants and entertainment closest to you, just like in Groupon.

Online shopping

Before the era of mobile applications, Taobao (淘 宝) was China’s largest online market. There were sellers from international mega-corporations to individuals. On Taobao, you can find everything you can legally sell in China, from motorcycles to toothpicks. Many shops in Taobao provide shipping services, with their help, you can buy goods from Paris and New York at a reasonable price. Taobao also offers people from less developed countries the opportunity to buy cheap and high-quality Chinese clothing and household items.


Inside the station of an express delivery company in Zhejiang province. Employees do the daily work of processing parcels from Taobao stores.

JD (京东) is a similar to Amazon company, it sells almost the same as Amazon. They have the strongest competition with Amazon in China. JD is known for selling electrical products, like Amazon for selling books.

Taxi search

In China, there is a fierce battle between Uber and the local DiDi (嘀嘀). DiDi covers more cities, big and small. You can call a taxi, licensed by DiDi. It seems that Uber is fighting for its place, offering lower tariffs.

news

There are many news applications. The most popular are Netease and Tencent.

Maps and Navigation

Baidu Maps (百度 地图) are, in effect, copied from Google Maps. They are useful only within China, because data from countries outside of China are incomplete. By the way, Google is blocked in China, so it’s not possible to use its map application.

The Gaode Maps application (高 德 地图) has become the most popular software for car navigation. It is installed in the old GPS-navigators and purchased for a fee.

Search for restaurants and entertainment

The two applications, Meituan (美 团) and Nuomi (糯米), are similar to Groupon, and are almost the same between them.

First, they determine your location by GPS and offer a store or service depending on the selected filters: by distance, rating, price, etc. According to my feelings, these Chinese applications cover more types of consumer services than their counterparts in the US, with a more detailed classification. Having walked a couple of blocks further from your apartment, you will find that more than 80% of businesses are registered in the applications: food sales, massage, service, gyms, etc.

To attract additional users, these applications run campaigns with discounts on each order, that is, in fact, they “buy” users for real money.

Takeaway

Takeaway is mostly informal meals and snacks, such as sandwiches and tortillas. In the US, such food is mainly ordered through the Seamless and Grubhub applications.

In China, restaurants and grocery stores, from those serving 18-course dinners to fast-food eateries, pack and deliver food to customers. Previously, customers left orders over the phone, and now through the application.

There are two of the most popular applications: Meituan Waimai (美 团 外卖) and Baidu Waimai (百度 外卖), they collaborate with restaurants and street cafes. They have their own courier staff.



In China, this is an interesting spectacle - on the "lunch" streets are groups of couriers in beautiful uniforms and with electric scooters, waiting next to large restaurants. After receiving a request from the system, one of them enters the restaurant, picks up the packaged food and takes it to the client.

Game and application stores

The 5 most popular single-player and MMO games.

Games differ from applications in that they earn money by selling. The scale and trends of the Chinese gaming market today attract a lot of attention. The number of Chinese players is huge, games of any genre have an astronomical number of players. In the article I will consider only the most popular genres.

The general situation in the Chinese mobile gaming market is this: the most popular and most profitable genre is the MMORPG, there are countless games in it. In other types of games, for example, "three in a row", "tower defense" and in card games, game number one usually holds a monopoly position.

MMORPG

梦幻 西游 (Fantasy of Journey to the West ) is a game with national motives, it belongs to the old franchise with a lot of fans. 梦幻 西游 and many MMORPGs similar to it have common features: they are all high-quality and with beautiful graphics. Usually they are based on the Chinese mythology of the UCL (oriental martial arts).



Regardless of the combat system used: JRPG arena, Diablo style or 2D scroller - all of them have the same game mechanisms: level increase, weapon search, basic quest tasks, social and team tasks that are very close to the hearts of the Chinese.


In 西游, JRPG combat style and simplifications for mobile devices using automatic battles are used.

Below are screenshots of popular MMORPG.

Three in a row (Match 3)

开心 消 消 乐 (Happy Match) is a popular game in all of China that makes a profit of 100 million yuan ($ 15 million) every month. Because of her style, she cannot stand on a par with the world's best three-in-a-row games, such as the Candy Crush and Cookie Jam series. But it is a great example of how a mobile game can build its success on Tencent's Wechat / QQ.

In the West, the virality of mobile games depends heavily on the connection of players through Facebook. As I wrote above, a similar platform in China is Wechat / QQ. And all games that depend heavily on a circle of friends should work closely with Tencent, because, unlike Facebook, Tencent platforms are not open to developers.



Game three of the “three in a row” genre in China is the Fruit 果 消 消 乐 (Colorful Fruit Match), and it lags far behind number one. And number three in China is not.

Candy Crush Saga and Cookie Jam have entered the Chinese market for a long time, but you will not find them on the leaderboard.

Runners

The most popular 2D runner game is Tencent's day天 天 Every Every (Everyday Cool Run). Her gameplay is not bad, but the social functions and the system of improvements to the equipment and pets make the game quite confusing. The game-runner should be fairly simple, because you can start it and quit playing at any time, right?



The two most popular 3D runners are Subway Surfers and Temple Run 2. They are excellent, they have flexible control and new content is added regularly. There are heaps of other Chinese 3D runners, but they did not find a place on the leaderboard: Chinese developers usually don’t grasp the nuances necessary for active games.

Games like Clash of Clans

In China, as you can guess, there are far more imitations and clones of games of this type than in the rest of the world. However, Clash of Clans still holds the top spot in China. And her success led to a close neighborhood with her on the Clash Royale leaderboard.

Minecraft

As with the rest of the world, Minecraft seems to be installed on each child’s phone or tablet. Now they are crazy about Story Mode.

Collectible Card Games

Warcraft Franchise has a huge fan base in China, so no game can compete with Hearthstone.



Card game 刀 塔 传奇 (Dot Arena) was a massive success. Unlike Heathstone, the game of cards is not on the table: the player fights with a group of heroes in the automatic battle mode. The game is notable for the fact that Blizzard is in a long legal battle with its developer because of the plagiarism of graphics.

"Informat" games

This is not to say that such games have gained massive success in China, but their developers usually say that sales have set an unexpected record.

Other popular games

Musical, FPS, tower defense, poker.

And about Pokemon Go

A few years ago, almost every child from a wealthy family had a Game Boy or GB Color with a Pokemon cartridge. It can be seen that Nintendo is firmly established here, and you can understand what would happen if it released its mobile games in China.


“Pokemon Go: the driver who stopped in the middle of the road to catch Pikachu became the cause of a serious accident!”

If Pokemon Go will be released in China, then the company will have to replace Google with Chinese partners involved in maps and social networks. I do not know what it would lead to. And it is better if the game never appears in China, because otherwise there will be many stories about teenagers downed by cars chasing Pikachu, or about children falling into ditches.