In Sensor Tower's latest global revenue ranking, Kingshot joined Whiteout Survival at the top, securing both the No.1 and No.2 spots for Century Games. Meanwhile, its newly launched merge title, Tasty Travels: Merge Game, also entered the chart at No.29.
The company has become nothing short of a hit factory. Riding its momentum, parent company Century Huatong's stock price has surged, with market capitalization surpassing ¥100 billion (≈ US$13.8 billion) in July 2025—cementing its status as a leading A-share gaming giant.
Looking back, Century Huatong's ¥6.939 billion acquisition of Century Games from FunPlus was seen by many as a high-stakes gamble. A decade later, it is now considered a masterstroke.
1. A ¥6.9B Acquisition and the ¥2B Performance Gamble
Rewind to ten years ago: the mobile gaming industry was booming, capital markets were exuberant, and cross-industry acquisitions were everywhere.
Before Century Huatong's deal, multiple players had attempted to acquire DianDian Interactive (Century Games). In 2014, 中技控股 announced a ¥6.02 billion acquisition plan, only for the deal to collapse due to regulatory issues.
In December 2014, Century Huatong moved decisively, paying ¥6.939 billion for 100% of Century Games. Even today, such a figure would stir the industry—ten years ago, it was staggering.
Why was Century Games worth such a premium? 中技控股’s acquisition prospectus described it as an “internationally leading gaming company integrating R&D, publishing, and operations,” with long-term partnerships with Facebook, Google Play, and the App Store. It even compared Century Games to Zynga, then the world’s casual gaming giant.
The appraisal was backed by hard numbers. In 2011, Century Games launched Family Farm, a farming sim on Facebook, which amassed over 80 million registered users and stable monthly revenue of US$2–3 million.
In 2012, it followed with Family Farm Seaside, extending the IP into mobile with added fishing and island systems. The title entered the iOS Family Games Top 10 across multiple markets, and by 2013, was generating over US$1 million in monthly revenue.
Century Huatong, having already achieved triple-digit profit growth through prior acquisitions, was eager to capture Century Games's overseas momentum. But the deal came with a performance gamble: Century Games was required to deliver net profits of ¥517.5M, ¥702.8M, and ¥830.6M from 2016–2018—a cumulative ¥2B target. Relying solely on Family Farm was not enough.
Help came from FunPlus' SLG titles. KingsGroup, FunPlus' Beijing studio, developed King of Avalon (2016) and Guns of Glory (2017), both published by Century Games. The former became the first Chinese game to top the US iOS grossing chart; the latter generated US$250M in its first year. By 2018, Century Huatong's financials showed ¥770M in revenue sharing from KingsGroup—about 17% of Century Games's total.
These titles not only helped Century Games hit its performance targets but also allowed it to build early expertise in SLG publishing and player ecosystems—laying the foundation for Whiteout Survival and Kingshot years later.
2. Growing Pains and ¥1B in Losses
After fulfilling its performance pledge, Century Games entered a slump. Profits fell sharply in 2019 and 2020, before posting nearly ¥1B in cumulative losses across 2021–2022. The cause: a weak product pipeline and insufficient in-house R&D.
Historically focused on publishing, Century Games had neglected self-development. Only in 2019 did it begin pivoting toward self-developed, self-published games. Over the next few years, dozens of titles were launched in casual, RPG, and 4X categories.
Some achieved decent results. Family Farm Adventure, leveraging its legacy IP, once exceeded US$10M in monthly revenue. Other titles like Idle Mafia, Dragonscapes Adventure, Valor Legends, and Awaken also crossed ¥10M in monthly revenue. Still, none were breakout hits capable of carrying the business.
Adding pressure, Century Games failed to secure publishing rights for FunPlus' third major SLG, State of Survival, which went on to surpass US$1B in lifetime revenue. By 2022, its earlier contracts for King of Avalon and Guns of Glory also expired.
Yet these “lost years” were not wasted. They clarified Century Games's strategic focus. By 2022, CEO Chen Qi had publicly identified three core tracks:
- Casual (mass-casual titles)
- RPG
- Innovative strategy hybrids—not traditional 4X, but narrative-driven, immersive, and with personal progression hooks.
As CMO Wu Qing noted, the market was shifting toward “lightweighting of hardcore games and deepening of casual games.” This thesis would soon prove prescient.
3. Revenue Hits ¥15B, Parent Company Breaks ¥100B Market Cap
2023 marked a turning point for Century Games, with Frozen City sounding the charge for a comeback.
This post-apocalyptic survival sim, set against a frozen wasteland, revolves around a gameplay loop of resource gathering – construction and upgrades – population management – and reproduction. Players are tasked with keeping the settlement running under constant threats of extreme weather, food shortages, and wild beast attacks.
Frozen City validated both the mechanics and theme of survival-based simulation. Coupled with Century Games’s broader understanding of genre convergence—“making mid-core games more casual, while adding depth to casual games”—it laid the groundwork for Whiteout Survival.
According to Sensor Tower, Frozen City topped the global simulation category in revenue growth in February 2023, becoming Century Games’s highest-grossing title at the time. That same month, Whiteout Survival officially launched with strong user acquisition support.
Data from AppGrowing shows that in its first month, Whiteout Survival ranked fifth in ad spend share, climbing to first place the very next month. At that stage, however, it wasn’t receiving disproportionate attention—Whiteout Survival accounted for 23% of total spend, followed closely by Dragonscapes Adventure (21%) and Frozen City (15%). As Century Games’s Chen Qi later noted, they hadn’t set a revenue target, but the game outperformed all expectations.
By August, after several months of steady growth, Whiteout Survival broke into the U.S. iOS top-10 grossing chart for the first time. Since then, it has become a fixture on overseas revenue leaderboards, hitting $2.25 billion in cumulative revenue by March 2024—making it the fastest title in five years to surpass the $2 billion mark.
Powered by Whiteout Survival, Century Games’s revenue surged 56.96% year-on-year in 2023. In 2024, revenue doubled again to RMB 15 billion, up 155% YoY, contributing around 70% of Century Huatong’s total.
The game not only revitalized Century Games but also reshaped the SLG genre itself, cementing “4X + simulation” as one of the mainstream formulas. Titles like Dark War Survival and Lands of Jail have since leveraged differentiated themes to validate the same model.
In 2024, Century Games surprised the market again with Kingshot. Built on the “4X + simulation” foundation, the game uses a medieval war setting while blending in Thronefall-like casual tower defense mechanics—an innovative hybrid that carved out a unique competitive edge.
According to Pocket Gamer, Kingshot grossed over $100 million in just 117 days and, within six months, joined Whiteout Survival at the top of Sensor Tower’s overseas revenue rankings. AppGrowing data shows that between April and July, Kingshot became Century Games’s biggest UA focus, peaking at 43% of total spend.
Meanwhile, more than a year after launch, Tasty Travels: Merge Game has begun to pick up momentum. A travel-and-cuisine-themed merge title, it enters a genre with proven potential: in Sensor Tower’s July overseas revenue chart, Gossip Harbor (from Microfun) ranked third behind Whiteout Survival and Kingshot, with sister title Seaside Escape placing 11th. This naturally raises expectations for Century Games’ Tasty Travels.
With Whiteout Survival, Kingshot, and Tasty Travels advancing in tandem, Century Games looks poised for a new era of triple-engine growth. While the story is still unfolding, these successes already prove the foresight behind the company’s genre bets and hybrid-design strategy. After years in the doldrums, Century Games has firmly entered a new growth cycle.
