(Source: Economic Daily)

Reprinted from: Economic Daily

Recently, the 23rd China International Digital Interactive Entertainment Exhibition (2026 ChinaJoy) was held in Shanghai. PayPal made an appearance at this event, engaging in in-depth exchanges with global game developers, publishers, and industry partners. It shared insights into overseas game market dynamics and payment trends, and showcased its comprehensive global capabilities in cross-border collections and disbursements and risk management for the gaming and digital entertainment industries.

Data shows that in 2025, China’s self-developed games generated overseas sales revenue of US$20.455 billion. However, players in different countries and regions exhibit clear regional differences in content discovery, community engagement, and spending habits. This means that overseas operations are shifting from relying on a single traffic-buying approach to achieving multi-touch coordination such as “content, creators, communities, and events.” Game localization is no longer limited to language translation or asset adjustments; it involves multiple aspects including content formats, community culture, marketing channels, and localized payment experience. Game companies urgently need to develop differentiated strategies, and through ongoing operations, transform one-time product launches into long-term player trust relationships.

The rise of cross-platform distribution and self-operated top-up websites has also accelerated the development of the direct-to-player model. Manufacturers can more directly capture private-domain data and increase player value through diverse approaches such as in-game services, subscriptions, DLC, and virtual goods. However, when transaction scenarios extend to self-operated channels, enterprises face new challenges including multi-currency onboarding, tax compliance, chargebacks and refusals, account takeovers, and fraud.

With its global network and industry experience, PayPal provides an all-in-one payment solution for overseas gaming developers: relying on a global payment network covering nearly 200 markets and more than 400 million active accounts, PayPal helps Chinese gaming companies connect with a broader base of overseas players and accurately track consumption trends in different markets. PayPal can fully support one-time purchases, in-game services, subscriptions, DLC, and the sale of various digital goods. Through the PayPal Open global pay-and-collect platform, gaming enterprises only need to integrate once to access PayPal and multiple payment methods commonly used by overseas consumers, reducing the complexity of managing multiple platforms. With continuously optimized, branded payment experiences from PayPal, it effectively reduces user drop-off during checkout.

In addition, as transaction scenarios extend to self-operated channels, risks such as account takeovers, unauthorized transactions, virtual-item fraud, and malicious chargebacks have become increasingly prominent. PayPal leverages global risk-management technologies and a smart risk-control system to provide around-the-clock monitoring for transactions. For large enterprises and high-growth merchants, PayPal can offer flexible, enterprise-grade risk-control models, combining global payment-network reach, data insights, and risk-management capabilities to enhance security while reducing false positives against real players, supporting companies in expanding into overseas markets in a steady and resilient manner. (Economic Daily reporter Yuan Yong)