According to April’s China Mobile Games Market Monitor, a joint product of TalkingData and Newzoo, role-play and strategy games dominated the Top 100 Grossing Android Games ranking. Combined, the two genres make up 49% of total revenues for the month. Role-playing games, in particular, make up nearly 29% while strategy accounts for 20%. This can be attributed to the continued success of Tencent’s King of Glory, which still dominates the charts and remains the highest-grossing title for the month. Tencent currently holds nine of the Top 20 Grossing Android Games in China.
Strategy game Zhan Jian Di Guo made a surprising debut at #2 in the grossing rankings after previously releasing on the App Store two years ago. The game was the primary driver behind the increasing revenues of the strategy genre. We will closely monitor the performance of this game in the coming months to see if this success continues.
UPDATES ON MOBILE ESPORTS IN CHINA
As mentioned above, Tencent’s esports title King of Glory was the #1 grossing game in April. Chinese gamers have also welcomed Supercell’s Clash Royale with open arms and many successful competitions have been and will be held this year. There’s another success story being written with SuperPop & Lolipop’s Battle of Balls as one of the first, popular casual games to gain traction in the esports market. Interestingly, the owner behind this game is Giant Interactive, Vainglory’s official partner publisher in China. Another esports-focused company, Yingxiong, has released several key titles in different genres including FPS, action, competitive casual, and strategy and announced its professional mobile esport league: Hero Pro League. China remains the global leader when it comes to mobile esports titles and popularity.
You can read more on the development of mobile esports in China here and don’t forget to subscribe to our 2016 Global Esport Market Report.
MOVIE AND MOBILE GAME CROSSOVER SUCCESS
In April, there were a few mobile games based on popular Chinese television shows that gained moderate success. Legend of Nine Tails Fox aired in February alongside a role-playing game with the same name, published by Zilong Game. It ranked #10 in Myapp. Gae Mobile’s Xuan Yuan Jian Zhi Tian Zhi Hen, another role-playing game based on the TV show, launched in the beginning of April. It has already topped the Tencent’s app store ranking and reached the top of the iOS paid ranking by April 14.
GAEA MOBILE ON THE RISE
Gaea Mobile has a slew of mobile titles over the coming months that are expected to be big hits. Sha Ba Ke Chuan Qi, co-launching with Shanda Games is based on the classic PC role-playing title The Legend of Mir 2, first released in 2001. Another title, B.E.E School Shock is an action/romance game based on a popular Chinese manga. Lastly, the upcoming game, Yu Jian Cheng Feng is a MMORPG based on a classic and ultra-popular Chinese TV show Chinese Paladin.
Gaea Mobile may be more known for its Western release of Ace of Arenas, an Action-MOBA style game. The publisher has also worked on many known franchises such as Astro Boy and Street Fighter.
