王者荣耀进军欧美市场
Tencent’s ‘Honor of Kings’ may have drawn the ire of China’s moral police this week, but that hasn’t hindered the internet giant’s plans to take the mobile gaming sensation global. According to a story in Bloomberg Friday morning, Hong Kong-listed Tencent wants to roll-out the title across the U.S. and parts of Europe as early as September. The multiplayer fantasy-themed game is Tencent’s most profitable mobile title and has about 200 million regular users in China. The article, quoting sources familiar with the matter, says that taking the game global is part of Tencent’s plans to diversify its revenue base. The company, based in Shenzhen, is currently best known for its WeChat social network, which has close to one billion users. Here’s more from today’s Bloomberg article: Tencent may also be trying to create a truly global title to stand beside foreign acquisitions League of Legends and Clash of Clans. The self-developed Honour of Kings, in which players hack and slash their way through battle arenas, has been gradually introduced to select markets beyond China, such as Turkey and Thailand. Now it also will launch in the U.S., France, Italy, Spain and Germany, the people said. Those versions of the title are expected to incorporate local touches: some of the existing international takes let players assume the mantle of Van Helsing or Batman for instance, in a tie-up with Warner Bros. Interactive and DC Entertainment. Tencent’s already renamed the app Strike of Kings in many non-Chinese markets. Honor of Kings is free to download for gamers, and makes money by charging players for upgrades and additional items. Tencent’s stock has been slammed by investors this week, at one point shedding up to 5% in one trading day. The bloodbath came after a number of online opinion pieces in the state-owned People’s Daily newspaper criticized Honor of Kings as “poison.” The paper claimed that a Chinese teenager had suffered a stroke and almost died after becoming addicted to the game and playing it for 40 hours non-stop. That’s made investors nervy about China imposing more regulations on these sorts of titles. Tencent has tried to dampen any controversy surrounding the game by imposing limits on how long youngsters can play per day. |