Do they have any tradition regarding that? I mean, Japan is basically the country with the most doujin(indie) stuff around and the tradition of it has been a thing for a very long time. The conventions, the laws and best practices, the spirit of the creators (more about the creation aspect than making a profit), it really helped build and sustain the scene.
As far as I observe, the tradition and the spirit you mentioned of indie games are not quite there yet.
Where Japan has long history of doujin scene , western games have hobbyist roguelike since 80s. Both are very hobbyist focused instead of profit focused.
Most Chinese players I met usually view games as an industrial business or something that must have pragmatic functionality.
that could either be
1. A business AKA, GDP generating.
2. A national/cultural honor，high art AKA propagating culture
By high art I don't mean it meets some arbitrary standards, but the game received good external validation.
Such as aggregate score or famous critics. Under that mentality, Dwarf fortress is good only because it is famous for being treated as a classic high art game by famous media and populace.
Not because the individual player really appreciate it regardless of how other thinks.
Therefore most Chinese players still place AAA games on high regard, because it achieved two criteria above.
In contrary to small budget indie games which is usually targeting a narrower audience.
Even the indie scene sometimes is full of that same broader audience and bigger profit mentality.
I think this value difference is crucial for indie games, because most indies are played by the core players only and not making big GDPs.
There are probably multiple factors lead to this sentiment.
Other than cultural difference, one I can think of is that most people in China aren't having lots of time to create hobbyist games for themselves.
The people who have skills tend to just work it for money or fame.
For narrower audience indie games to flourish, people need to have some level of work-life balance.
One can't spend time on making something that is only fun for oneself when one still thinking too much about their next paychecks too much.
For lack of a better term, Chinese lack gaming aristocracy and NEET devs.
It probably going to take a while for that indie tradition to grow. If it happen at all.
However due to sheer size of player population. Some traditional indie roguelikes have a relatively big playerbase in China.
But ofc they are minority in the entire Chinese player population. I am hoping if that audience get bigger, there will be survival space for low budget indie games target those audience to live.
Since small budget indie games don't need to sell many to sustain themselves.
