Tips for Publishing Games in ChinaTips for Publishing Games in China
Our senior analyst, Zeng Xiaofeng, spoke with Like Winkie at Gamasutra to provide some thoughts on the key points that Western publishers need to understand when trying to break into the China games market. The feature lists four major points that are essential reading for every company trying to crack China.
Shanghai Dragons is China’s Overwatch League Esports Team
Earlier this year Blizzard announced that they would run an official competitive esports scene for Overwatch with the launch of the Overwatch League. A total of 12 teams have been announced including one team owned by NetEase and based in Shanghai. The team is called Shanghai Dragons, as announced this week. The preseason is scheduled to kick off this December.
Chinese gamers review bomb PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has sold over 3.5 million copies on Steam and is one of the biggest buy to play games in China. This week we noticed that the game received 15,000 negative reviews in one day. After further investigation, Niko analysts found that Bluehole had placed advertisements in the game to VPN provider Xunyou who were offering a VPN service that claimed to remove server lag, something that many Chinese gamers had experienced recently.
Banana Gaming completes RMB200m in Series B Financing
Banana Gaming has obtained Round-B financing of RMB 200 million ($30m) to expand its esports business, Banana Culture. The company has built a strong esports platform in China and operates a number of esports tournaments each year including the League Pro League in 2016 and the Overwatch Premier Series in 2017. Banana Culture is looking to expand overseas as well as develop esports across many sectors including movies and retail.
Garena files for $1 billion IPO
Singapore based games and e-commerce firm SEA, formally known as Garena, has filed for its U.S. IPO. Garena has expanded its gaming business across southeast Asia and now has over 40.1 million users on its PC games portal. The company has seen revenues grow from $161 million in 2014 to $346 million in 2016. The main beneficiary of the SEA listing will be Tencent, the largest shareholder with a 39.7 percent share. This is the largest IPO from Southeast Asia, particularly in the digital games and e-commerce space.
Hero Entertainment prepares for IPO
Hero Entertainment, a company that specialises in high quality esports games, has obtained RMB 1.7 billion ($260 million) in financing through a pre-IPO. Hero Entertainment has been successful in the esports sector with games like Crisis Action which over 10 million daily active users. In 2016 Hero Entertainment secured a $288 million investment from Huayi Brothers and reported $77 million in profits.
It’s a Tencent World
Honor of Kings is the worlds biggest game right now and helped Tencent generate $4.3 billion in game revenues last quarter. Niko analyst Daniel Ahmad talked to the Financial Times about why the game is such a success in China and how Tencent has dominated the gaming market.
China’s Internet Users are Younger than Ever
A new survey by the Guangdong Internet Security for Children Forum has found that Chinese children are going online earlier than ever. 23% of children aged between 3 and 6 spend more than 30 minutes online each day. More than 60% of 7 year olds have downloaded a game and over 70% of children aged 12 use social media like WeChat and QQ. The Internet is now being used for everything among children, from school homework research to gaming to live streaming.
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