China

Niko Partners and Tencent Present Deep Insights Into Asian and MENA Video Games Markets

Last week the entire senior analyst team at Niko Partners gathered at Tencent America headquarters in Palo Alto, California in front of a roomful of gaming professionals to discuss their latest research and insights focused on the Asian, Middle East, and Northern Africa video games markets. At the event, Niko Partners provided additional context and detail [...]

Free event: Navigating the Asian and MENA Games Markets with Niko Partners and Tencent

Tencent and Niko invite you to join us at the Tencent America offices in Palo Alto for a deep dive into the Asian and MENA video game markets. For the first time, the Niko Partners senior team will be gathered in one place to discuss and answer questions about their latest research, providing additional context and [...]

Asian Games Go Digital: Esports’ Unforgettable Debut in Hangzhou

The 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou took place in September and early October 2023 – after a long delay attributed to the pandemic. The Games’ Director explained, "This is the first Asian Games after the COVID-19 pandemic, so it will play a unique, inspiring and important role for the Asian people." It was an exciting Games, [...]

Chinese Gamers’ Reactions to Overwatch 2 on Steam

This news can be found in our Value-Added News Analysis, that keeps you up to date on the curated, most important development of Asia & MENA’s gaming scene, delivered right to your inbox. The Steam version of Overwatch 2 launched on August 10, marking the start of Blizzard’s move to bring its PC titles to platforms [...]

2023-10-03T01:28:40-07:00August 16th, 2023|Categories: China, PC Games|Tags: , |

Celebrating 20 Years of ChinaJoy – Our 2023 experience

ChinaJoy, one of the largest video game conventions and exhibitions in the world, celebrated its 20th anniversary between July 28 – 31 2023 in Shanghai. Niko Partners has participated in ChinaJoy for all 20 years, beginning with the inaugural event in January 2004 in Beijing (which was postponed from summer 2003 due to an airborne virus), [...]

2023-08-10T02:30:11-07:00August 9th, 2023|Categories: China, Esports, PC Games, Riot, Streaming|Tags: , , , , , , , |

Valorant to accelerate PC game and Esports revenue growth in China

On July 12, 2023, Tencent and Riot Games finally launched the highly anticipated first-person shooter title, Valorant, in mainland China. The launch comes three years after the games international debut in June 2020, with the delay attributed to a long process for getting a Chinese license (ISBN) required for local operations. This game licensing process had [...]

China 2023 game licenses on track to surpass 2021 and 2022

The first quarter of 2023 has been positive for China video game approvals and Niko Partners expects total game licenses for the full year to surpass 1,100, returning to a level last seen in 2020. The National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), the government regulator responsible for issuing game licenses (ISBNs) approved 288 games in Q1 [...]

2023-04-04T20:21:25-07:00April 4th, 2023|Categories: China, Infographics, Niko Analysis, Regulations, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , |

A Personal Reflection of Life Before, During and Three Years After COVID-19

Three years ago, in early 2020, Wuhan announced the closure of the city due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Three months into my family’s confinement as residents of Wuhan I wrote “A personal account of gaming and life in Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak” to share my story about gaming during the initial Wuhan lockdown with Niko’s [...]

2023-10-03T01:34:31-07:00February 23rd, 2023|Categories: China, Consoles, Regulations, Uncategorized, Youth Gamers|Tags: , , , |

China’s Symbiotic PC & Mobile Games Markets

A notable trend in China’s digital games market is successful PC to mobile game adaptations. What we have seen is that hardcore PC-based MMORPGs, for the most part, have been relaunched as mobile games, and this is a trend that is relevant in 2017. Most of the Top 10 grossing mobile games on the iOS chart [...]

2017-05-12T09:50:05-07:00May 8th, 2017|Categories: China, Mobile Games, PC Games|Tags: , , |

Tencent Maintains Global Gaming Dominance Thanks to League of Legends & Honor of Kings

Tencent had a record year in 2016 as it saw game revenues increase 25% YoY to 70,844 million RMB / $10.2 billion USD. This makes Tencent the world’s largest games company for the fourth year in a row and it’s worth bearing in mind that the $10.2 billion number doesn’t include revenues generated by Supercell who [...]

2017-04-13T11:06:06-07:00April 13th, 2017|Categories: China, Niko Analysis, Tencent|Tags: , , , |
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