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| TOKYO — Genshin Impact, one of the world’s hottest mobile video games, has all the characteristics of a Japanese invention: giant robots; human-size swords; characters with huge eyes and spiky, rainbow-colored hair; and a puzzling fixation on women in maid outfits. | 东京——《原神》是目前世界上最热门的手机游戏之一，它拥有一项日本发明产物的所有特征：巨型机器人；和人类等高的剑；有着巨大眼睛和多彩细尖头发的角色；以及对身穿女仆装的女性令人费解的迷恋。 |
| There’s just one catch: It’s Chinese. | 只有一个意外：它是中国的。 |
| Released in late 2020, the game is the first bona fide international smash hit for China’s video game industry. In its first year on the market, it raked in $2 billion, a record for mobile games, according to Sensor Tower, a firm that monitors mobile apps. And, unlike other popular Chinese games, it is believed to have generated most of its revenue from overseas. | 这款游戏于2020年底发布，是中国电子游戏行业第一个真正意义上走红全球的大作。据监测移动应用的Sensor Tower公司称，在上市的第一年，它就赚到了20亿美元，创下了手游纪录。而且，与其他受欢迎的中国游戏不同，据信它的大部分收入来自海外。 |
| The game’s success points to a shifting balance of power in the $200 billion-a-year global video game industry, which has long been dominated by Japan and the United States. | 这款游戏的成功表明，在年产值2000亿美元的全球电子游戏产业中，力量平衡正在发生转变。长期以来，该产业一直由日本和美国主导。 |
| Chinese developers, flush with cash from the country’s vast domestic market, are looking abroad for growth. They see Japan — the world’s aging video game superpower — as a ripe target, and Chinese companies have begun buying up Japanese talent and applying lessons learned from years of imitating Japan’s industry leaders. | 从庞大国内市场获得充裕资金的中国开发商正向海外寻求增长。他们将日本——这个日渐衰老的世界电子游戏超级大国——视为一个成熟的目标，中国公司已经开始收购日本人才，并借鉴多年来模仿日本行业领袖的经验。 |
| In some respects, China has already started to outpace its Asian neighbor. It has built world-class engineering capabilities over a decade of doing outsourcing work for Japanese video game companies, and Chinese firms like NetEase and Tencent are making the kinds of investments in game development that their Japanese competitors can only dream of. | 在某些方面，中国已经开始超越其亚洲邻国。在为日本电子游戏公司做了十多年外包工作后，它已建立了世界级的工程能力，而像网易和腾讯这样的中国公司正在对游戏开发进行各种投资，这是它们的日本竞争对手梦寐以求的。 |
| But Genshin Impact is also a reminder that while China’s video game industry may have achieved technical mastery, it still faces significant creative shortcomings. Although it has some Chinese elements, Genshin is a nearly picture-perfect reproduction of one of Japan’s most popular video game genres: fantasy role-playing games. | 但《原神》也提醒我们，尽管中国电子游戏行业可能已经掌握了技术，但它仍面临着重大的创意缺陷。尽管《原神》中有一些中国元素，但它是日本最受欢迎的电子游戏类型——奇幻角色扮演游戏——近乎完美的翻版。 |
| The game’s creators, at the Shanghai-based company miHoYo, proudly refer to themselves as “otaku,” a Japanese term often used to describe people whose lives are consumed by aspects of Japan’s pop culture, like manga and anime. | 这款游戏的开发者是总部位于上海的米哈游公司，他们自豪地称自己为“御宅族”，这是一个日语词，经常用来形容那些彻底生活在漫画和动漫等各种日本流行文化中的人。 |
| The game’s reliance on Japanese motifs is a potent demonstration of that country’s considerable soft power, and of the limited returns on China’s own efforts to build the same. China’s video game sector, like the rest of its entertainment and culture industry, has struggled to produce distinctive, original content with international appeal — a symptom, in part, of its authoritarian government’s tight controls on business and society. | 这款游戏对日本主题的依赖有力地证明了该国相当大的软实力，以及中国自己努力建设同样软实力所获得的回报是有限的。与中国其他娱乐和文化产业一样，中国的电子游戏行业一直难以制作出具有国际吸引力的独特原创内容——这在一定程度上是中国威权政府对商业和社会严格控制的表现。 |
| Even as China has grown into an economic goliath, it has had difficulty shaking the image that it is better at imitating other people’s ideas than coming up with its own. | 即使中国已经成长为经济巨人，它也很难摆脱这样的印象：它更擅长模仿别人的想法，而不是自己的想法。 |
| Still, copycat or not, Genshin is a sign to many insiders of the challenges the Japanese video game industry faces. Under fierce competition from the United States, Europe and, now, China, it has ceded its once-dominant position over the past two decades. | 然而，无论是否模仿，许多业内人士都认为《原神》是日本电子游戏行业面临挑战的一个信号。在来自美国、欧洲以及如今中国的激烈竞争之下，它在过去20年中已经失去了曾经的主导地位。 |
| Even many of those who initially dismissed the game as a cheap knockoff have been won over by its quality and attention to detail. From the standpoint of technology, art direction and game play, Genshin represents a huge leap forward for China, said Yukio Futatsugi, chief executive of Grounding Inc., a game developer in Fukuoka, Japan. | 甚至许多最初认为这款游戏是廉价仿制品的人，也被它的质量和对细节的关注所打动。日本福冈游戏开发商Grounded Inc.的首席执行官二木幸生说，从技术、艺术指导和游戏玩法的角度来看，《原神》代表着中国的巨大飞跃。 |
| “Frankly, it’s a great game,” he said, adding that it has made a lot of people in his industry think “we’re in trouble.” | “坦白地说，这是一款很棒的游戏，”他还说，这让他所在行业的许多人认为“我们有麻烦了”。 |
| Genshin is notable for its fantasy world building and broad appeal across not just countries but also demographics: The game is unusually popular with women. | 《原神》以奇幻世界构建和广泛的吸引力而令人瞩目，它的魅力不仅跨越国家，也跨越不同人群：这款游戏在女性当中非常受欢迎。 |
| There are a large number of female characters among the dozens that players can use to explore a vast kingdom, delving into dungeons, battling monsters and completing quests to advance the story’s epic narrative about a mysterious traveler entangled in a war between humanity and the gods. | 游戏的几十个主要角色中有大量女性，玩家可以利用这些角色去探索一个巨大的王国，深入地下城，与怪兽战斗，完成任务，从而推进故事发展，这个史诗般的故事讲述了一个神秘旅行者卷入了人类与神灵之间的战争。 |
| In what may be a first for China, Genshin’s mythos has inspired the kind of global response that has long defined success for Japanese games: cosplay, fan art and endless online dissections of the characters and their magical kingdom, Teyvat. (It was the most mentioned game on Twitter in 2021.) | 《原神》在全球引起了长期以来标志着日本游戏成功的那种反响：角色扮演、粉丝创作的艺术，以及网上对角色及其魔幻大陆提瓦特的无数在线分析。（它是2021年Twitter上被提及最多的游戏。）这对于中国来说可能是第一次。 |
| Players in Japan have mostly seen Genshin as either a homage to or a knockoff of the newest entry in one of the country’s most beloved fantasy game franchises: The Legend of Zelda. | 日本玩家大多将《原神》视为对该国最受欢迎的奇幻游戏《塞尔达传说》(The Legend of Zelda)系列最新作品的致敬或模仿。 |
| Liberal borrowings from the game’s most recent chapter — called Breath of the Wild — are mixed with a grab bag of references to other Japanese cartoons and video games, like Hayao Miyazaki’s film “Castle in the Sky” and the role-playing game Dragon Quest. | 《原神》大量借鉴了《塞尔达传说》的最新篇章——《荒野之息》(Breath of the Wild)——并且借鉴了其他日本卡通和电子游戏，比如宫崎骏的电影《天空之城》(Castle in the Sky)和角色扮演游戏《勇者斗恶龙》(Dragon Quest)。 |
| MiHoYo overcame initial skepticism among Japanese players by adding a new area to Genshin, called Inazuma, which is based on Tokugawa-era Japan. | 米哈游克服了日本玩家最初的怀疑，在《原神》中添加了一个基于德川时代日本的地区——稻妻。 |
| The portrayal isn’t necessarily positive: The country is a cloistered, xenophobic archipelago clouded in radioactive fog. But for Japanese players, those negative aspects have been far outweighed by the positive portrayals of Japan and its video game culture, said Yusuke Shibata, who runs a YouTube channel where hundreds of thousands of players watch him play the game. | 游戏中对稻妻的呈现不一定是正面的：这是一个与世隔绝、排外的群岛，笼罩在放射性烟雾之中。但是对于日本玩家来说，对日本及其电子游戏文化的正面呈现远远超过了这些负面因素。YouTube频道主播柴田祐辅说，有数十万玩家观看他在该频道玩游戏的视频。 |
| Japan accounts for nearly one-third of Genshin’s revenue, even though play time and downloads have — on mobile at least — lagged behind those of top homemade games in the country. | 日本占据了《原神》近三分之一的收入，尽管游戏时间和下载量——至少在手机平台上——还落后于该国顶级自制游戏。 |
| Genshin is free to play, but it has generated a dragon’s hoard of revenue through another concept from Japanese games: charging players for the chance to win new characters and powerful equipment. The concept is known as gacha, a Japanese word that describes the country’s beloved capsule toys. | 《原神》是一款免费游戏，但它却通过日本游戏的另一种理念创造了大量收益：玩家要付费才有机会获取新角色和强大装备。这种玩法源自“扭蛋”，是日本人钟爱的胶囊玩具。 |
| Players win rewards through a lottery system, and the odds of getting the best ones — many of which are available only for a limited time — are vanishingly small. This inducement to gamble has drawn complaints from both players and regulators in Japan and China, but miHoYo has allayed those fears by making it entirely possible to play the game without spending a dime. | 玩家通过抽签系统获得奖励，而获得最佳奖励的几率（其中许多奖励只能在限定时间内获得）微乎其微。这种赌博诱惑招致了日本和中国的玩家以及监管机构的抱怨，但米哈游让玩家完全可以不花一分钱就能玩这个游戏，从而缓解了这些担忧。 |
| It is one of several Chinese games that have broken through — the others on a smaller scale — in the Japanese market. Only four years ago, Japanese developers held a monopoly on the top games in Japan, said Daniel Ahmad, a senior analyst at Niko Partners, a video game research firm. Now, about one-third of the top 100 mobile games in Japan come from China. | 《原神》是在日本市场取得突破的少数中国游戏之一，其他游戏的占有率都比较小。游戏研究公司Niko Partners的高级分析师丹尼尔·艾哈迈德表示，就在四年前，日本游戏开发商还垄断着日本的热门游戏市场。现在，日本排行前100的手机游戏约有三分之一都来自中国。 |
| For years, China’s video game industry was largely cut off from the world because of government bans on consoles and strict censorship. A watershed came in 2018, when the government temporarily cut off the approval process for releasing games domestically. Many studios once focused only on China turned their eyes overseas, where releases were far easier. A new freeze on domestic game releases has further accelerated the shift. | 多年来，由于政府对主机的禁令和严格的审查制度，中国游戏产业基本与世隔绝。2018年出现了一个分水岭，当时政府暂停了国内发行游戏的审批程序。许多曾经只关注中国市场的游戏工作室将目光转向海外，因为在那里发行游戏要容易得多。国内游戏发行的新禁令进一步加速了这种转变。 |
| Chinese companies trying to sell games abroad have encountered suspicion of the country’s tech industry and authoritarian tendencies. Genshin has faced questions over its Chinese origin, with the game initially receiving a frosty reception in Japan over rumors that it included Chinese spyware. Inside China, Genshin remains censored, and overseas, players are barred from chatting about politically sensitive topics like Taiwan or Xinjiang. | 试图在海外销售游戏的中国公司遇到了对该国科技产业和威权倾向的怀疑。《原神》曾因来自中国而受到质疑，该游戏最初在日本受到冷遇，因为有传言称其含有中国的间谍软件。在中国国内，《原神》仍受到审查，而在海外，玩家被禁止谈论台湾或新疆等政治敏感话题。 |
| This year, miHoYo made some female characters’ outfits less revealing, a decision that some fans appreciated but others called an example of the threat posed by China’s regulations. More broadly, the authorities in China have warned video game developers about being overly reliant on Japanese themes. | 今年，米哈游让一些女性角色的着装不再那么暴露，这一决定得到了一些粉丝的赞赏，但也有人称这是中国管控威胁的一个例子。而在更宽泛的层面上，中国当局已经警告游戏开发商，不要过度依赖日本元素。 |
| MiHoYo declined multiple interview requests, citing its executives’ busy schedules. | 米哈游以高管日程繁忙为由拒绝了多次采访请求。 |
| Mr. Futatsugi, the Japanese game developer, has been among the beneficiaries as Chinese companies look overseas. In 2021, he received a substantial investment from NetEase, giving him more freedom to express himself artistically. | 随着中国公司将目光投向海外，日本游戏开发商二木也是受益者之一。2021年，他获得了网易的大笔投资，让他有了更多在艺术上表达自我的自由。 |
| “There aren’t any companies in Japan that will give us the money to make the kinds of games we want to make,” he said, adding that “Chinese companies are the ones that most recognize our company’s value.” It doesn’t hurt that he is allowed to keep 100 percent of the intellectual property from the venture. | “在日本，没有任何公司愿意出钱让我们制作我们想做的游戏，”他说，“中国的公司是最认可我们公司价值的。”还有一点好处是，他在该投资项目中可以保留全部知识产权。 |
| Mr. Futatsugi says the most serious threat to Japan’s video game industry is not from China. Instead, he locates the core of the problem in Japan itself, pointing to its aging population and shrinking market, licensing agreements that keep profits out of creators’ hands, and the reluctance of conservative companies to embrace new ideas. | 二木表示，日本游戏产业最大的威胁并非来自中国。相反，他认为问题根本还是在日本自身，包括人口老龄化和市场萎缩，授权协议使得创作者无法获得收益，以及保守的公司不愿接受新创意。 |
| Still, industry analysts warn that the injection of money will funnel talent away from top Japanese companies, accelerating the industry’s decline, said Seiichi Mitsui, who heads the consulting firm Game Age Research Institute. | 咨询公司游戏时代研究院的负责人光井诚一表示，尽管如此，行业分析师还是警告称，资金的注入将导致日本顶级游戏公司的人才流失，加速整个行业的衰退。 |
| “If Japanese companies don’t defend themselves — not just individually but by banding together as an industry — they may not be able to put on the brakes,” he said. | “如果日本公司不保卫自己——不是单独自卫，而是作为一个行业联合起来——再想踩刹车恐怕就难了，”他说。 |
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