At the recent Huawei Developer Conference 2025 (HDC 2025), the gaming services sub-forum in Dongguan, China, brought together industry heavyweights and ecosystem partners to explore the theme: “New Opportunities, New Experiences, New Services: How HarmonyOS Innovates the Game Industry.” The event underscored a pivotal moment for the gaming sector, highlighting how HarmonyOS is poised to reshape the landscape.
According to the Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association, HarmonyOS has matured significantly, weathering the challenges of the digital age. He encouraged developers to embrace the ecosystem, envisioning a future brimming with creative, high-quality games that will elevate the player experience. The goal: fostering innovation and prosperity within the industry.
Zhang Sijian, President of Interactive Media BU, Huawei Terminal Cloud Service, emphasized that the Huawei Game Center is committed to providing developers with comprehensive support. He also highlighted the ongoing enhancements to the HarmonyOS gaming incentive program. This includes initiatives focused on all-scenario applications, mini-games, joint operations, and international expansion, all designed to encourage developers to leverage the unique features of HarmonyOS. The ultimate goal is to create an intelligent distribution network that reaches millions of gamers.
New Opportunities: Unleashing Value Across All Scenarios
The HarmonyOS gaming ecosystem has shown explosive growth over the past year, boasting over 4,900 games. This figure symbolizes both growth and a collaborative spirit within the gaming industry. Innovative breakthroughs are propelling HarmonyOS to the forefront, with its “one-time development, multi-platform deployment” technology enabling developers to seamlessly reach users across smartphones, PCs, and wearables. This creates unprecedented opportunities for user acquisition and engagement.
The experience of the action title, “Brave Lands,” highlights the potential. The game launched on the HarmonyOS platform in May, with a PC version fully adapted to HarmonyOS-powered computers. Leveraging the ecosystem’s robust distribution channels and launch strategies, “Brave Lands” saw impressive results, generating over 3 million yuan in revenue in its first week, with HarmonyOS contributing a significant 30%. The conversion rate for pre-orders hit an impressive 40%, illustrating the power of the HarmonyOS’s all-scenario ecosystem in driving user growth.
The mini-game sector, a crucial growth driver, is also experiencing a boost with enhancements to Huawei’s mini-game platform. These include streamlined integration, enhanced development kits, and a robust joint operation system, making it easier for developers to thrive within the HarmonyOS gaming ecosystem. This allows mini-games to quickly bring users on a path towards conversion and monetization, helping developers capitalize on the multi-billion-dollar mini-game market.
For independent games driven by content, the Huawei Game Center provides a dedicated platform and lifecycle support, creating a favorable environment for growth. A dedicated independent game zone and diverse distribution channels connect games with their target audiences. This helps independent developers take advantage of traffic in the age of all-scenario applications, establishing independent games as a strong force in the gaming world.
As the HarmonyOS ecosystem expands, and its user base grows, more and more game developers are beginning to focus on HarmonyOS versions, aiming to capture this growth. To support them, the Huawei Game Center has introduced new incentive policies, including the Game Hongfei Plan, offering various incentives from technical support to prioritized traffic allocation. These initiatives aim to support and help quality content succeed, fast-tracking developers on their path to success.
New Experiences: Transforming Gameplay and Enhancing User Engagement
At its core, the HarmonyOS gaming ecosystem is focused on breaking down interaction barriers to create a truly immersive experience. The Huawei Game Center curates a rich content community, offering in-depth game information to help players find content, while providing valuable resources for developers.
By offering deep-dive game experiences, including reviews, and developer insights, the ecosystem is enabling richer story telling. The search function has been enhanced with tag and themed searches, allowing new games easier discoverability. Also through improvements in game tools, asset management, and AI, the ecosystem is boosting user engagement and play time.
HarmonyOS’s innovative features are also reshaping gameplay. The developers of “Brave Lands” and “NBA 2K” shared their experience with rapid sharing technology, which using distributed technology for quick resource transfers over local connections. Users can now share game files instantly, improving file transfer by 300%. Meanwhile, “Floating Life Memory” will introduce a charming desktop pet feature. Players can now seamlessly bring aspects of the game into daily life through mini games and interactive content. The popular “Thunderbolt: Awakening” is also optimized to play mini games within instant action play, keeping 90 frames per second, and minimizing power consumption.
New Services: Optimizing Support for Developers and Launching High-Quality Games
In the realm of developer support, the Huawei Game Center is committed to partnering with developers throughout their product lifecycles. One-stop services (HGS) provide developers with tools, operational support, and technical know-how, so partners can thrive in the HarmonyOS ecosystem.
During the sub-forum, the “QQ Speed” mobile game engine lead showcased the collaboration with HGS on performance optimization. The HiSmartPerf optimization tool identifies and diagnoses rendering issues. The game’s power consumption was reduced by as much as 20% in some scenarios through various optimizations, including rendering, binary optimization, and scene-based adaptation.
For the mini-game sector, a new WebGE graphics rendering technology based on WebGPU standards is optimizing user experiences. Thanks to WebGE, the 3D rendering performance of the adventure mini-game “Dawn Rebirth” has been pushed by 30%, which renders much faster. The 3D bullet hell game, “Thunderbolt: Awakening,” maintains a super smooth and lag-free 90 frames, and consumes 15% less power than before. This graphical rendering technology boosts mini-game design and inspires limitless imagination.
The Huawei Game Center is building a robust developer platform, offering forums, training, competitions. The grand HarmonyOS Innovation Tournament 2025 will be held during HDC, promising millions in rewards. The competition will have a special gaming innovation award, based on categories such as gameplay design, technical depth, and visual presentation. The initiative encourages game developers to build creative game products, leveraging innovation to grow the sector.
Every breakthrough in the HarmonyOS gaming ecosystem is testament to the ingenuity of developers. Whether its “NBA 2K” sharing resources over local connections, or “Thunderbolt: Awakening” rendering a smooth 90 frames without download, the ecosystem has evolved from a standalone system to a collaborative force. Going forward, the Huawei Game Center and developers will work together to cultivate quality game content, enhance user experience, and improve its ecosystem, leading to the high-quality evolution of the games sector.
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