A year ago, at Tencent's annual staff meeting, Chairman Pony Ma criticized the gaming business for "resting on its laurels." Just one year later, this assessment has transformed into "a very impressive achievement." The overseas business has been emphasized once again, and it was revealed that Tencent's share of overseas game revenue is now close to half of its domestic business. In 2019, Tencent began accelerating its steps toward global expansion. Last year, the overseas gaming business was even seen as the company's biggest hope for internationalization. This year, Pony Ma once again gave positive feedback on the overseas business. 01.New and Old Products Jointly Pushed Revenues to New Highs According to the released financial reports, Tencent's overseas gaming business […]

In the latest edition of SensorTower’s Global Revenue Rankings for Chinese Mobile Game Publishers, Microfun has surpassed Papergames and 37 Interactive Entertainment, securing the sixth position on the list. This achievement is attributed to two of its merge games—Gossip Harbor: Merge & Story and Seaside Escape: Merge & Story. In November last year, these two games topped the global merge game revenue rankings, with Gossip Harbor even surpassing Genshin Impact, reaching Top 4 on the global mobile game revenue chart at the time. Earlier, AppGrowing conducted a follow-up report on Gossip Harbor. In brief, Gossip Harboris a Merge-2 (two-in-one) game that follows the classic cycle of “tap to generate items, merge items, complete orders, earn coins, renovate.” However, the game […]

The theme is often the key to breaking through in SLG games. Some seemingly unconventional themes can sometimes achieve unexpected success, such as the "mafia" themes in two SLG games, Mafia City and The Grand Mafia by YoTa Games, or the "ant" theme SLG The Ants: Underground Kingdom by StarUnion. Last November, Tap4Fun launched Top Girl, which also features a highly eye-catching theme — girl groups. Not only that, the characters of these girl groups are also generated by AI. After launching, Top Girl demonstrated strong market competitiveness. By the end of November, it had made its way into the top 200 on the U.S. iOS game revenue charts, and now it has climbed to around the top 100. Tap4Fun […]

Here is an analysis of the global non-gaming App user acquisition marketing trends for November 2024, based on ad data from 50 countries/regions and 28 global media platforms, according to AppGrowing's report. In November 2024, shopping, tools, and finance categories ranked as the top three in terms of the share of active apps advertising. Notably, the tools category claimed the top spot for new app launches during the month. In terms of ad volume, with key events such as "12.12" approaching, shopping apps saw a substantial increase in overall ad placements, far surpassing other categories. The top 2-5 categories for ad volume were entertainment, tools, finance, and food & drink, respectively. In terms of ad creative formats, image-based materials continued to […]

The following analysis of mobile games marketing trends for September 2024 is based on advertising data from AppGrowing across 50 countries and regions, and 28 global media platforms. In the rankings of mobile game advertising share by category this month, Casual, Puzzle, and Casino games secured the top three spots. Casino games continue to dominate in new ad placements, accounting for 36.55%, although this marks a decline from the 40.75%share observed last month. In terms of total ad volume, Puzzle and Casual games rank first and second, while Simulation games surpassed Role-Playing games to take third place. Video remains the primary creative format for global mobile game advertising, but its share has declined from 80.07% last month to 74.35% this […]

      According to SensorTower, Tencent's SLG mobile game Age of Empires Mobile saw significant revenue growth in October, ranking eighth on the global mobile game revenue growth chart with $10.7 million in revenue. According to 伽马数据（CNG）, SLG games accounted for an impressive 38.9% of revenue among the Top 100 overseas mobile games developed in China last year, vastly outperforming the second-place RPG genre at 16%. The revenue-generating capabilities of SLG games need no further emphasis. Conquering the SLG category would undoubtedly be a significant boost to Tencent Games’ global expansion. Now, Age of Empires Mobile seems to be that critical entry ticket. But what kind of game is it, and how has it managed to break through the […]

Tencent’s subsidiary Miniclip recently announced a $1.2 billion acquisition of Easybrain from Embracer Group, with the deal expected to close in early 2025. Miniclip, which joined Tencent in 2015 as a pioneer in the global casual gaming sector, has not only made significant progress in casual sports games but has also acquired over a dozen studios in recent years, greatly expanding Tencent’s footprint in the international casual gaming market. The acquired company, Easybrain, is a top-tier developer in the casual puzzle genre, specializing in Sudoku, crossword, and jigsaw puzzle games. Just recently, Easybrain announced that its mobile games have surpassed 2 billion downloads, cementing its position in the global gaming market. At first glance, the acquisition appears to be a […]

At the end of last month, 4399 launched another WeChat mini-game in the Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Southeast Asian markets. The game successfully entered Taiwan’s iOS game bestseller list, reaching a peak position of sixth. Although this game bears the name 热血大作战, it is unrelated to the WeChat mini-game 热血大作战 released by 4399 a few months ago. In fact, its counterpart is 指尖无双. With its distinctive artistic style and a hybrid gameplay combining "simulation + SLG," 指尖无双 broke into the top ten of the WeChat mini-game bestseller list back in April this year. The mainland China success of 指尖无双 and its impressive overseas performance naturally spark curiosity: how did it stand out in the fiercely competitive mini-game market? And […]

Here is an analysis of the global non-gaming App user acquisition marketing trends for October 2024, based on ad data from 50 countries/regions and 28 global media platforms, according to AppGrowing's report. In October 2024, shopping, finance, and Tools apps continued to lead the app advertising landscape in terms of app count. However, in terms of the share of newly launched apps, the leading categories were food & drink and health & wellness categories. Entering the year-end promotional period, overall ad volume for shopping apps surged, surpassing 5 million ad groups. Ranking second to fifth in ad volume were food & drink, entertainment, Tools, and finance categories. Regarding ad formats and video lengths, image-based ads saw an increased share this month, […]

The following analysis of mobile games marketing trends for September 2024 is based on advertising data from AppGrowing across 50 countries and regions, and 28 global media platforms. In October, the category distribution of ad placements for mobile games ranked Puzzle, Casual, and Casino games as the top three in terms of active ad placement. Notably, the Casino category saw a continued rise in new app ads, now accounting for 40.75% of new placements this month. In terms of total ad volume, Casual, Puzzle, and Role-Playing games remained the top three categories. Looking at ad format types and video length distribution, video-based creatives continued to dominate mobile game ads this period, rising to 80.07% of total ad placements.Video lengths were […]