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Mobile gaming
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Chinese mobile games from Tencent, miHoYo are still top earners, but a tougher market at home is taking a toll

  • Honour of Kings, PUBG Mobile and Genshin Impact remained the most lucrative mobile games in the world in the first quarter, but spending has declined
  • Chinese developers rely heavily on their home market for revenue, but a regulatory crackdown has pushed a game licensing freeze into its ninth month

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A man plays Tencent’s popular mobile game Honour of Kings on a high-speed train from Henan to Beijing on September 15, 2021. Photo: AP
Xinmei Shen
China’s biggest mobile games Honour of Kings, PUBG Mobile and Genshin Impact continue to be the most lucrative titles in the world this year amid a tougher gaming market and a prolonged suspension of new video game licences.
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Tencent Holdings, the world’s largest video gaming company, continued its reign at the top of Sensor Tower’s list of top mobile games by revenue based on income from Apple’s iOS App Store and Google Play. Its Honour of Kings and PUBG Mobile titles raked in US$735.4 million and US$643 million in the first quarter, respectively.

Genshin Impact, a more recent title from Shanghai-based miHoYo, ranked third with US$551 million in player spending, according to the analytics firm. The game from Tencent’s much smaller, decade-old rival has been an unlikely success story overseas. When released in September 2020, analysts said Genshin Impact had the largest international launch ever for a Chinese game.

While remaining top of the pack, Tencent’s flagship games are seeing the impact of reduced spending on games. Revenue for Honour of Kings fell 1 per cent year on year for the quarter, while PUBG Mobile revenue was down 9 per cent. Player spending across all mobile games was down 7.1 per cent to US$21 billion, despite a 2.1 per cent increase in downloads to 14.4 billion.

Amid this tougher landscape, the three games have extended their wins over rivals from 2021, when they were also the top three earners in gross revenue. From January 1 to December 14 last year, Honour of Kings and PUBG Mobile each earned US$2.8 billion, and Genshin Impact grossed US$1.8 billion.

Roblox, from California-based Roblox Corp, came in fourth place for 2021 with US$1.3 billion in revenue. That game has grown its popularity by acting as a platform through which people can develop and play mini games. The company has promoted it as a metaverse-like platform.
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Much of the success of Chinese titles is owed to the revenue generated at home, the world’s largest gaming market with US$46 billion in revenue last year, according to data from Newzoo. In China, PUBG Mobile is available as Peacekeeper Elite, a more patriotic version of the game. Variants of Honour of Kings are available internationally under different names, most notably Arena of Valour.
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