China: AI emerges as game changer for game developers, players.

Shotlist Shanghai, China - Recent (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland) 1. Exhibition booths, participants at ChinaJoy 2026 2. Various of visitors trying game 3. SOUNDBITE (Chinese, dubbed in English) visitor (name not given) (ending with shot 4): "The character is incredibly lively. It feels just like a real person talking." 4. Various of visitor trying game 5. Sign at ChinaJoy 2026 6. SOUNDBITE (Chinese, dubbed in English) Xiao Hana, project team member, MEOWNTAIN (starting with shots 4-5): "This year marks my 10th year in game development, but I only started using AI last year." 7. Various of computer screen showing programming language, games, AI-driven game development platform 8. SOUNDBITE (Chinese, dubbed in English) Xiao Hana, project team member, MEOWNTAIN (starting with shot 7/ending with shot 9): "This time we introduced AI agents so that players can freely talk to them. But behind this, we've trained a data volume of about 100,000 words per character." 9. Various of participants trying game 10. SOUNDBITE (Chinese, dubbed in English) Zhang Jian, General Manager, Ecosystem Development Department, Tencent Games (starting with shot 9): "Ideas can be validated at a very early stage, and the cost of trial and error is greatly reduced. But lowering the barrier does not mean the barrier disappears – it merely shifts from 'can it be made' to 'is the idea good enough.' Creativity and judgment will only become more scarce in the future. So, AI reallocates developers' energy to where it truly matters." 11. People at ChinaJoy 2026 12. Poster of "AI CAN DO IT" hackathon 13. Various of people developing games 14. SOUNDBITE (Chinese, dubbed in English) Deng Zhidong, Product Operation Specialist, WorkBuddy (starting with shot 13/partially overlaid with shot 15): "We consider games to be an industrial-grade application with high integration and complexity among internet applications. If it can perform well in such a complex industrial environment, I believe it can also perform better in other daily work and general tasks." ++SHOT OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++ 15. Person developing games ++SHOT OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++ 16. Various of developers introducing games 17. SOUNDBITE (Chinese, dubbed in English) Deng Zhidong, Product Operation Specialist, WorkBuddy (starting with shot 16/ending with shot 18): "Many of our student teams don't actually come from traditional backgrounds – like computer science or art – yet they are making games. Many of them, for instance – and this impressed me – include civil engineering majors and landscape design majors. They bring their own professional perspectives." 18. Various of visitor trying game 19. Various of exhibition booths, participants at ChinaJoy 2026 Storyline Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a strong driving force for China's gaming industry, lowering creation barriers, speeding up production, and empowering more people to turn game ideas into reality. At China's largest annual gaming expo, ChinaJoy, which lowered the curtain on Monday, cutting-edge AI technologies, from AI-driven game development workflows to lifelike humanoid robots, amazed crowds of game lovers. "The character is incredibly lively. It feels just like a real person talking," said a game lover, marveling at how natural the interaction felt. Many industrial insiders also pointed out that AI has entered the game development industry. By describing an idea in ordinary language, creators can use the system to generate code, lower the entry barrier for game developers. "This year marks my 10th year in game development, but I only started using AI last year," said Xiao Hana, a project team member of MEOWNTAIN. She also stated that the first batch of games built from the AI platforms have already debuted on the Chinese market. "This time we introduced AI agents so that players can freely talk to them. But behind this, we've trained a data volume of about 100,000 words per character," she explained. The role-playing game, for example, having just released on Thursday, was built with the AI agents developed by the Chinese tech giant Tencent. The rapid advancement of generative AI has made players' interactions with game characters feel more natural and fluid. "Ideas can be validated at a very early stage, and the cost of trial and error is greatly reduced. But lowering the barrier does not mean the barrier disappears – it merely shifts from 'can it be made' to 'is the idea good enough.' Creativity and judgment will only become more scarce in the future. So, AI reallocates developers' energy to where it truly matters," said Zhang Jian, General Manager of Ecosystem Development Department at Tencent Games. AI is helping developers create and update games faster, while bringing down production costs. At the same time, Chinese titles are reach