Seeing the Massive Scale of a Chinese Game Company: NetEase Hangzhou Campus

There are so many game developers around the world. Among them are famous and huge game companies that represent each country.

NetEase is one of those game companies. It is one of the most representative companies that comes to mind first among the many game companies in China. Recently, it has been gaining attention as a developer by achieving great global success with Once Human and Marvel Rivals.

NetEase, which services and develops various games, has huge campuses in Guangzhou and Hangzhou, China. As most of the company's employees are developers, each campus also houses various development studios.

And one day in January, I had the opportunity to explore NetEase's Hangzhou campus. It was even more special because Chinese developers rarely introduce their companies to foreign reporters. Although there were not many places to take pictures, I was able to see how Chinese developers are organized.

First of all, the most surprising thing is its size. As a place where more than 2,000 people work, the NetEase Hangzhou campus was truly a town, a village. There were several huge buildings on each campus that seemed to have no end, and they were filled with so many facilities that there was no need to leave the company.

In fact, on the campus I briefly toured, I could see a massage shop serviced by NetEase's AI robot, a convenience store full of various drinks and simple foods, a huge dining buffet large enough for hundreds of people, a NetEase cafe, a juice and snack shop that grinds fresh fruit, a market where you can put out drinks and food and take them, and a gym where you can receive PT and a huge basketball court and table tennis court.

Even most of these facilities were located on the first floor or outside of the building, which you could see just by taking a quick look around, so I couldn't even imagine how much content would be inside the huge building. And some of these facilities can be used using NetEase's internal points, also known as 'NetEase Kong'.

▲ Various convenience facilities are located throughout the company

Unfortunately, I was not able to see the spaces where the development teams actually work on this tour. The only place that was open to the media was the 'motion capture' room. Many developers have motion capture rooms, but it was the first time I saw how it was applied.

In the case of NetEase, it is possible to apply the actor's movements directly into the game and check them. All movements are transferred into data through the equipment attached to the actor's body, and this data is applied directly into the game. Since the actual movement may look awkward when applied to the game, it was also possible to check the in-game appearance and modify the movement on the spot.

This motion capture is used in various NetEase games. FragPunk, the main event of this media tour program, also applies all of the Lancers' actions and everyday movements through motion capture.

What I confirmed through this tour is the huge scale of Chinese developers that we have only encountered in text. There may be many factors behind the rapid growth of the Chinese game industry, but in the end, this huge number of people and the huge facilities must have been the foundation.

NetEase has approximately 2,000 employees in Hangzhou and more than 4,000 in Guangzhou, and more than 70% of them are developers. And those many developers are constantly creating games on a huge campus.

If I had even glanced at the actual work space, I would have been able to feel the difference between Korean or global game companies more realistically. However, the scale alone made it possible to understand to some extent how they were able to release hits such as Once Human and Marvel Rivals in quick succession, and how they are able to continue to create new works in various genres such as FragPunk and Infinity.

And I took pictures of the town of huge game developers, NetEase's Hangzhou campus. Although I could only go to very limited places, I tried my best to capture the amazing scale.