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8 Dec, 15 tweets, 5 min read
Chinese game and tech giant Tencent has invested in more than 20 game developers this year

While the company has mostly focused on mobile games in recent years, some of these new investments show that Tencent is also interested in the PC and Console space.

Let's discuss 1/
2/ Tencent recently invested several hundred million RMB in Wizard Games, a Chinese developer known for Battle Teams, a game with 500m users.

The company is creating Battle Teams 2, a high end competitive shooter for PC that is set to release in 2021.

gamespress.com/Wizard-Games-S…
3/ Tencent also took a 20% stake in Wangyuan Shengtang, a Chinese game company founded in 2009

The team is most well known for the Gujian franchise, with its latest release being Gujian 3 for PC. The RPG based on Chinese fantasy sold over 1.5m.

pcgamer.com/uk/gujian-3-co…
4/ Tencent took a 39% stake in TiGames, a Chinese game developer working on F.I.S.T: Forged in Shadow Torch, a metroidvania action game.

The title is part of Sony's China Hero Project and the game is planned to release on PS4 / PC next year.

blog.playstation.com/2020/07/01/act…
5/ Just this week, Tencent took a 19% stake in Dream Game Studio which is based in Shanghai and released 'The Swordsman X' which is a wuxia / martial arts battle royale style game for PC.

The studio is working on other projects for PC too.

sea.ign.com/swordsman/1384…
6/ What's notable is that all the investments above were:

- Finalised in the past month
- Are developers that have a presence on PC / Console
- Have fairly diversified portfolios of games
- Strong potential for growth
- Are exploring multiple platforms including mobile
7/ When we look to overseas investments, the company has taken minority stakes in developers such as Platinum Games, Marvelous, Funcom, Yager, 10 Chambers and others just this year.

The company also acquired Leyou, the parent of Digital Extremes (Warframe) and Splash Damage.
8/ These overseas companies have similar traits as those mentioned in tweet 6.

We view these investments as a two way street. Tencent gets a broad portfolio including PC / Console game companies.

Those firms get Tencent's mobile game expertise for their own IP.
9/ Tencent is also building up its own internal capabilities in the console and PC space with new projects and studios.

In Console, the company partnered with Nintendo to launch the Switch in China and with the Pokémon Company to create Pokémon Unite for both mobile and Switch.
10/ Earlier this year the company also hired Scott Warner (ex Ubisoft) to lead a new studio in North America under its TiMi brand while Steve Martin (Ex Rockstar) is heading up another studio in North America under the Lightspeed & Quantum brand.

11/ The company has also set up a new studio in China called NeXT, which is essentially experimenting with new and unique concepts across multiple platforms.

From high end PC games to casual mobile games.

12/ This additional focus on AAA games in the PC and Console space is part of a recent trend among many Chinese studios as they look to become more competitive on the global stage and as gamers demand more from the titles that they play.

Tencent is looking to scale quickly.
13/ New data from Epic Games China also shows this shift across the China games industry.

The company noted that its PC client customers in China increased by 280% YoY and its mobile game customers increased 533% YoY.

Black Myth Wu Kong uses UE4 to achieve its quality level
14/ Tencent is currently taking a broad approach to its console and PC focus. With investments in related firms, dedicated console and PC game development teams, multi-platform projects and more.

The global PC & Console game software market is worth over $60bn right now.
15/ This thread is just a look at one aspect of Tencent.

We put out a more in depth report on the company and its strategy for 2020 which is available to download for FREE here:

nikopartners.com/tencent-games-…

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More from @ZhugeEX

Daniel Ahmad Profile picture
5 Dec
The Monster Hunter movie has been pulled from theatres in China just 1 day after it released

This happened after strong backlash on social media over a scene that is considered offensive (below). It is unclear if the movie will return

Here is a thread to explain the situation:
Firstly I want to preface this by saying: if your immediate response is "That's not offensive" or "stop being sensitive" then I'm just going to block you.

If you're not Chinese then it's not really your place to decide what is / isn't offensive to people in China.
There are 4 key points to discuss in order to understand this situation.

1. The 10 second scene in the first tweet
2. The link to an old racist rhyme / phrase
3. The way the movie was subtitled during this part
4. Social media backlash and review bombing

我们开始吧
Read 15 tweets
Daniel Ahmad Profile picture
4 Dec
Great writing in the Monster Hunter movie...
Anyway, this is going down about as well as you'd expect in China where it's being linked to the rhyme / phrase "Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees - look at these?" which is considered offensive.
Capcom has issued a statement on social media due to the backlash, stating that it is aware of the situation and the controversy. That it is not the producer on the MH movie and that it will report the situation to the relevant film companies to investigate.
Read 8 tweets
Daniel Ahmad Profile picture
3 Dec
Apple has sent a notice to developers reminding them that all paid games or games with in app purchases must have a license to operate in China. All games without a license will be removed after Dec 31

We have been updating our clients on this situation since Feb

Thread below
Chinese law requires all games to be approved for both content and monetisation before they can be officially distributed in Mainland China.

This is a policy that went into effect on July 1, 2016 for all games and has been enforced on Android app stores since.
While Apple does require developers to enter a license number before publishing to iOS in China, there are loopholes that allow devs to launch without a valid license

Over the past 2 years a new regulator was set up that instituted various reforms, including closing loopholes
Read 8 tweets
Daniel Ahmad Profile picture
2 Dec
Internal data from Sony shows that PlayStation users regularly spend more time playing single player games than they do online games, and this is why they added the activities feature to PS5.

But aren't single player games dead?

Let's discuss. 1/

vice.com/en/article/5dp…
2/ It's no secret that the AAA games industry as a whole has been shifting away from single player (one & done) towards online and live service (recurrent) games on console.

These titles work at both a $60 price point and via the F2P model as games like Fortnite demonstrated.
3/ EA once famously said that linear single player games are dead, and to some extent they are correct due to adding the linear part

Single player as a whole was never dead

It's just AAA single player games that succeed have evolved to meet the current expectations of players
Read 19 tweets
Daniel Ahmad Profile picture
29 Nov
Ok, Let's go on a journey.

Over the past two weeks the #MuseDash hashtag on TikTok has been blowing up.

It first started blowing up on Chinese TikTok (Douyin) where it has nearly 400m views. Overseas it has nearly 60m views.

So what is Muse Dash and why is this notable?
1/
Muse Dash is an anime style music rhythm game developed by a team in Guangzhou, China and published by XD Network, also China based.

The game has been out for over a year and is doing well for an indie title

Please note some of the in game art is 18+ as noted in Steam tags
If you use TikTok then you've probably come across the #MuseDash trend yourself. While it has taken on various forms at this point, it started out on Nov 8 as a simple live wallpaper video that had characters from the game in it

These videos captured the attention of many people
Read 10 tweets
Daniel Ahmad Profile picture
27 Nov
Shanghai based game developer Lilith Games unveiled 'Farlight 84' this week. It's a new PvP shooter set in post apocalyptic 2084 with crafting, building and MOBA elements, which culminates in a 40 player battle royale.

The game will start testing in H1 2021 on PC & Mobile.
The game, which is developed on Unreal Engine 4, continues to show the evolution of the Chinese game development scene, taking the high definition graphics and in depth mechanics that work on console & PC and combining it with their strengths in mobile game development.
As we've seen with MiHoYo's Genshin Impact, Chinese game studios are investing in more robust experiences that can scale across multiple platforms to reach a broader audience.

These games are designed with global appeal in mind to reach players worldwide.
Read 7 tweets

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