Kapital Koopas: Ringfit Adventure Gets China Release, Universal and Riot Games Collaborate for Esport Music

Press F to pay respects to all the fallen goombas. It's time for a deep dive into China's gaming culture in our column, Kapital Koopas.

Ringfit Adventure comes to China right on time to burn your post-pandemic fat

Days ago, Chinese gamers woke up to the news that Ringfit Adventure has acquired an ISBN (publishing approval number) in China, meaning it will officially be released to the mainland market, and will be the first non-Mario themed Nintendo game to be launched for the Chinese Nintendo Switch.

Incidentally, due to the pandemic's affect on manufacturing this year, Ringfit Adventure had only been able to pump out about 4 million copies worldwide. And given the fanfare surrounding the game, its price shot up to more than RMB 1,500 on Taobao, leaving countless would-be players out of luck. 

All of that changed on Aug 19, however, when Tencent announced a Sep 3 release of the game on Nintendo's official Tmall store and at various offline outlets. The game is priced at a very reasonable RMB 499 – which even includes a commemorative towel – almost one-third of the price that was hyped online. For the more ardent gamer, there will also be a number of bundle packs available.

If you're gonna have a game, it's gonna need some music

Ahead of the 2020 League of Legends (LoL) World Championship – the most viewed and followed esports tournament in the world – Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) China and Riot Games China joined forces to put together a star-studded lineup of esports songwriters.

The camp included 14 UMPG songwriters, including Golden Melody Awards' (GMA) Best Band winner Matzka, GMA's Best New Artist nominee Gong, and music reality show “Chuang 2020” contender, Chiyo, all of whom worked both in the studio and remotely to produce six songs which will be used at the LoL Championships, as well as for different video games moving forward.

Joe Fang, managing director of UMPG China said in an interview, “Music and gaming are activities of no boundaries. When matched well, the possibilities are endless.” 

Pokémon Go's Chinese trademark translation blunder

About four years ago, the release of Pokémon Go set the world on fire. Even though the game was bug-ridden and lacked quality gameplay, people found the game irresistable.

In fact, frenetic Pokémon trainers became a huge problem, as massive groups of people moved about the city, interrupting traffic and descending on unsuspecting businesses. Despite its popularity, folks in China were unable to get in on the fun given that most IP addresses in China were banned from logging into the game. From time to time, people would wonder whether China would ever appear on the Pokémon map, however, as time went by the chances seemed increasingly dim. 

And yet, just as fans were about to give up, some netizens noticed that Nintendo had registered a series of Pokémon-related trademarks in China, including a potential translation 宝可梦 走 Bǎokěmèng Zǒu for Pokémon Go. Though the franchise is well known for its high quality game localization, netizens quickly lampooned this poorly translated title. The literal translation is correct indeed, but underwhelming and frankly uninspired.

Read: Beijing International Film Festival Returns With a New Poster and List of Films

Images: Sina, Netease, Nintendo, Tencent, Universal, Riot Games