A scene from the latest trailer for TiMi Studio’s 'Honour of Kings: World', released during Gamescom. — Handout
Tencent Holdings, the world’s largest video gaming company by revenue, is intensifying its international expansion as its flagship studio reports a record number of overseas players and prepares to launch a new title based on its flagship game, Honour Of Kings.
TiMi Studio Group – developer of Honour Of Kings, Call Of Duty: Mobile, and Delta Force – has reached 100 million monthly active users outside mainland China, a milestone that took the 17-year-old studio by surprise, according to Huang Shuo, TiMi’s global publishing director, in a recent interview with the South China Morning Post.
This marks the first time TiMi has disclosed its overseas user numbers. As a key revenue driver for Tencent’s extensive gaming operations, the studio is doubling down on global expansion with the coming multiplayer adventure action role-playing game (RPG), Honour Of Kings: World.
Video gaming is a key revenue source for China’s most valuable tech conglomerate, which is aiming to boost overseas gaming sales as the domestic market begins to plateau.
Tencent’s latest financial results showed that its international game revenue surged 35% in the second quarter from a year earlier, while domestic game revenue rose 17% during the same period.
In recent years, Beijing has softened its regulatory stance on video games. While China enforces strict licensing and limits game time for players under 18 to three hours per week, authorities increasingly view local games as symbols of the country’s soft power, especially following the success of Black Myth: Wukong.
At this week’s Gamescom – the world’s largest computer games fair, which takes place in Cologne, Germany – TiMi set up its first-ever consumer stand, featuring Honour Of Kings: World as the main attraction. The spin-off title was among the first batch of video games approved in China this year, indicating that development is largely complete, though Tencent has not specified a launch date.
Launched in 2015, Honour Of Kings became the first game in history across any platform to average more than 100 million daily active users. Nearly a decade later, it remains the most lucrative mobile game in Apple’s App Store in China, according to July data from market research firm Sensor Tower.
Honour Of Kings: World would be available on various platforms, including mobile phones and personal computers (PCs), Huang said. The aim is to attract both existing Honour Of Kings players and new RPG enthusiasts interested in its storyline and aesthetic features.
“Since TiMi was established in 2008, we have capitalised on the mobile gaming wave,” she said. “However, we are observing a clear trend where more users start on mobile and then transition to PCs and consoles for a deeper experience.”
Huang identified Europe, North America, Japan and South Korea as top target markets for TiMi, while highlighting the potential of South-East Asia in competitive and social gaming.
TiMi’s global initiative began in the early 2010s with the publication of self-developed titles that gained popularity in specific foreign markets. In 2017, the studio began planning global launches during the development stage, opting to publish many of its titles independently rather than relying on third-party publishers.
Delta Force, a multi-platform first-person shooter launched last September, exemplifies this approach. It ranked among the top five games by daily active users (DAUs) and the top three by gross receipts in China in July, with DAUs reaching a record high of more than 20 million, Tencent said.
Looking ahead, Huang was confident that TiMi had a strong pipeline of new titles to drive user growth in international markets, including a mobile game adapted from the Japanese RPG Monster Hunter.
“Our goal is simple: to create more evergreen games, develop more multi-platform titles, and establish globally renowned intellectual properties,” she said. – South China Morning Post
