Tencent Games has shown a significant contrast complex in the secondary world track. On one hand, as an established giant, Tencent seems to the public to gradually lose its glory in this field and not consolidating its voice in the MOBA and tactical esports domain in time.
Many believe that Tencent has “missed the secondary world market” and “lost young players”. However, on the other hand, objective data shows that despite joining the game late, Tencent has achieved remarkable success in this field with its unique strategies.
According to statistics, in the past three months, Tencent-related products have occupied four of the top ten spots in the download and monthly revenue rankings of secondary world game products, with downloads and monthly revenues accounting for 40.85% and 24.84% respectively of these ten products.
Products like “Bai Jing Corridor”, “Charge! Cookie Run: Kingdom” and “Back to the Future: 1999” were pushed to public testing in the most competitive market over the last two years, and in three months, reversed their fortunes, accumulating nearly 1.7 million downloads and over 16 million USD in revenue.
They stand out not just with the company’s size and strength, but more so with differentiated strategies centered on content and gameplay. Tencent targets a broader audience, offering a variety of experiences to attract new users and maintain user loyalty.
In terms of product strategy, the adventure game “White Night Aurora” integrates connect puzzle and RPG battle gameplay and maintains over 20,000 new downloads per month even three years after its release.
“Bai Jing Corridor” uses a combination of PPI and API rendering technology, breaking away from traditional secondary world games and adopting a mid-to-heavy strategy. In its first month of public beta, it shot to the top of the AppStore free games chart and has consistently held a spot in the top ten best-selling charts.
“Charge! Cookie Run: Kingdom” introduces a pan-secondary world concept, using anthropomorphic cartoons plus adventure elements to attract mainstream players and takes into account the fan culture of the secondary world.
Since the public beta, this game has consistently stayed in the top 30 best-sellers, and in the third month after launch, it jumped in ranking higher, not entering a natural decline but instead rising from 18th in the second month to 15th in the third month.
In recent years, the secondary world games field has become one of the most competitive tracks in the entire gaming industry. As the market becomes saturated, voices from all sides are revealing a weary state in industry revenue growth.
Facing such intense competition in the secondary world market, Tencent is attempting to open up the market with new content and gameplay, expanding its user base.
From once being doubted to gradually forming a comeback situation, it can be said that Tencent’s journey in secondary world games is also a process of “looking up at the stars while striving forward with your head down”.
They are not content with struggling in the red sea but are trying to steer towards the vast blue ocean, seeking new possibilities.
To investigate the connection between domestic games and the second dimension (2D subcultures), we can trace back to a touching chapter—a vibrant journey of youthful dream-chasing accompanied by the call for change. Looking back to 2010, we witnessed the era dominated by feature phones and JAVA mobile games, with the commercialization of 3G networks ushering in a new leap in the information age. A group of systematically educated players in pursuit of deeper experiences craved more substantial stories and characters, prompting mid to heavy plot-driven games to gain popularity.
During that era, the scale of China’s internet users exploded, swelling to 457 million, and digital entertainment content began its gradual diffusion into the mainstream. At this stage, traditional digital entertainment brands were eager to expand their market share while the mobile gaming industry was in need of fresh content. Amidst this convergence of demands, the much-anticipated ACN (Animation, Comic, Novel) content became a valuable resource in the gaming field. Thus, the embryonic form of domestic second dimension games—the “comic-to-game” adaptation—quietly emerged.
When we look back at the early second dimension games, we find that they did not directly mention the concept of “second dimension,” but rather defined their essence as “gamification of second dimension products such as ACN.” This insight was built upon a foundational idea: to popularize relatively niche content by leveraging elements familiar to the general public, complemented by mature experience to enrich innovative yet still maturing creative ideas. This strategy was precisely Tencent Games’ expertise at the time.
After experimenting with light mobile games, such as running and puzzle genres, Tencent and many industry pioneers made a market judgment around 2012. The mobile game market was facing developmental bottlenecks: the novelty of touchscreen games faded, while the performance limitations of first-generation smart devices, high data costs, and revenue-sharing models with carriers all contributed to the difficulties of achieving both user scale and commercial revenue under the existing framework.
Focusing on the expansion of genres and business models, Tencent Games took an innovative step, creating the new model of “IP adaptation + card drawing.” In this business model, IP adaptations provided fresh themes, attracting a large user base with similar interests, expanding game content, and forming natural market segmentation. The card drawing mechanism established a new way to generate revenue, aligning with the consumer characteristic of animation fans willing to pay for stories and characters, creating more demand for in-game payments beyond numerical values, and enhancing the willingness and upper limit of player expenditure through randomness. Such integration successfully led to an all-around expansion in user groups, game content, and business models.
Tencent Games, in collaboration with Ledo Interactive, achieved explosive success in 2013 with “I Am MT,” with concurrent online users surpassing 1.5 million at one point and dominating sales rankings across various channels for over 200 consecutive days. This phenomenal hit demonstrated a viable development blueprint to the entire industry, igniting confidence and participation from more entities. A generation of second dimension and card mobile games, such as “Bloodline,” “Honkai,” and “Warship Girls,” subsequently emerged.
Leveraging the successful experience of “I Am MT,” Tencent continued to push the boundaries of comic-adapted mobile games. Their simple yet effective strategic core was to craft high-quality mobile games by utilizing more attractive IPs and offering larger gameplay content experiences. The following developmental journey is well-known to everyone. Until 2016, Cubestudio released the still actively developing “Naruto” mobile game, which has a leading comic IP with a broad fan base, blending side-scrolling action and RPG elements, not only providing a low barrier to entry but also a more extended character growth path.
Under the joint promotion of well-known IPs, platform traffic, and innovative gameplay, a game has achieved tremendous success in the market, becoming the highest revenue product for its developer since its establishment. This type of product, which integrates well-known IPs and novel gameplay, provides a secure gaming experience for players due to its higher market acceptance threshold and robustness.
Tencent Games has acted like a “pioneer” in this field, though at the time, the concept of “second-generation games” was not clearly defined, and Tencent did not continue to advance the definition of new “second-generation” games after successful comic adaptations. This resulted in missed opportunities during the rapid development of the ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) market and laid the groundwork for Tencent’s subsequent exploration of a unique path in the ACG field. No company in the world has yet achieved hegemony in the entire cultural and creative industry, which is determined by the creative diversity of the cultural and creative content industry.
From 2016 to 2021, including Tencent, some established gaming companies missed significant development opportunities in the ACG market. According to data from the Game Work Committee, 2016 became a milestone year for the mobile game explosion. Within less than a year, domestic mobile game revenue completed a comprehensive surpass of PC games, becoming the fastest-growing and globally leading main market.
As small and medium-sized companies and teams in this wave, benefiting from the spread of ACG culture, they avoided direct competition with industry giants and began to rise. For example, Bilibili clenched onto the Chinese licensing rights for “Fate/Grand Order,” miHoYo launched “Honkai Impact 3rd” amidst accusations of “imitation,” and NetEase’s Zen Studio released “Onmyoji” after 20 months of hard work. These emerging games, featuring Japanese style, elements of traditional Japanese culture, and gacha gameplay, did not disappoint the market, and many trend-following players also achieved their own transformation through these games.
In the following years, these games became regulars in the top ten bestseller charts and industry reports. Over time, Bilibili’s revenue grew significantly, and it successfully listed on Wall Street, miHoYo grew into an industry heavyweight, and NetEase Games also shed its old image of only producing MMO games.
During this period of transformation, Tencent appeared somewhat silent. This might be due to complacency and sluggishness caused by the stable income from comic adaptation products, or because Tencent was more optimistic about genres like MOBAs that could achieve scale and mass popularity. During this time, Tencent did not invest heavily in the emerging ACG market. Compared to other companies’ aggressive investments, Tencent’s actions seemed to be a struggle between conservatism and unease.
Internally, Tencent adopted a strategy of solidifying its foundation and pursuing moderate innovation. For example, they made adjustments in the field of “old-style ACG,” i.e., IP-adapted games, and first launched games such as “Naruto,” then expanded to a more diverse range of themes and gameplay combinations with “King of Fighters,” “Dragon Ball,” “Saint Seiya,” and so on. Later, the focus shifted to Chinese comic IPs like “The Outcast” and “Fox Spirit Matchmaker,” aiming to get involved earlier, try closer collaborative development, and perform more diverse and detailed community outreach.
As mature brands and teams deepen their exploration in the ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) sphere, in 2018, the mobile game “QQ Dazzling Dance” took the lead, pioneering with the introduction of the ACG spokesperson Xingtong, opening up new themes and potential for ability exploration. Yonghang Technology subsequently released the much-anticipated “White Night Aurora,” expanding Tencent’s territory in the core ACG game market. The strategy of external investment and resource accumulation also matured, especially in 2021 when Tencent made frequent moves, investing in at least 69 game-related companies, effectively consolidating its technological and product layout in the ACG game field.
Nonetheless, Tencent seems to have missed the opportunity to capture the early dividends of the ACG market. They failed to timely launch a flagship product that deeply attracted core ACG users and did not establish a powerful professional team before the rise in ACG human resource costs. Even though Tencent leads in the MOBA and FPS game fields, they still lack decisive influence in the new and vibrant ACG game sector filled with youthful energy and future possibilities.
Meanwhile, top ACG game developers like Yoozoo and miHoYo boldly advance the development of multi-genre, personalized original IPs; and traditional game powerhouses not specialized in ACG, like Shengqu Games, also explore this market, releasing new products like “Summer of Cherry Bay” bringing new experiences with cross-dimensional interaction, object anthropomorphism, and Chinese-style elements. The explosive success of “Genshin Impact” in 2021 completely overturned traditional views on the potential and operational strategies of ACG games, heralding a new mode of ACG game production and operation. Over the past decade, domestic ACG games have undergone a transformation from chaos to mature, competitive markets.
The success of “Genshin Impact” ignited countless manufacturers’ desire for the ACG direction, accelerating their pace to dive into this vast unknown field, hoping to find their place. However, the blue ocean period of ACG games was not as long and genuine as imagined. Since April 2023, at least 22 mobile game products aimed at core ACG users have been launched, and as of January 2024, 56 approved ACG games have yet to go online, with 16 facing the risk of abortion.
In this stage where the blue market gradually turns red, Tencent seems to have found a new way to re-enter the market. As mentioned at the beginning, even during the most competitive period in the market, Tencent’s several new ACG games still achieved remarkable results. “White Thorn Corridor,” released at the beginning of the year, is an example, achieving excellent user retention and payment conversion before its public beta, with downloads and revenue surpassing most contemporaneous new releases.
The creative team attributes this success to precise user positioning and game gameplay and content adaptation to new player demands. “White Thorn Corridor’s” team divided the target user group into IP fans, core ACG players seeking new gameplay, and general public players, thus ensuring the product meets various needs.
As the demand for strategic depth grows, the development team decided to abandon the “weak and passive” strategy typical in traditional 2D games and instead adopt a core gameplay design that leans more towards real-time tactics. This change aims to provide players with a richer and more in-depth gaming experience.
On the path of deepening game mechanics, the team utilized the domestic single-player game giant Candle Dragon’s exceptional storytelling and artistic production capabilities, infusing the game with innovative stories and characters. This unique mode of presentation, such as insisting on distinct artistic styles and integrating PPI and API rendering technologies, significantly differentiates this product from the traditional 2D games existing in the market.
The combination of “gameplay innovation + content innovation” found in the game “White Thorn Corridor” is not an isolated case. In recent years, Tencent’s 2D games have also shown a similar development trend in terms of gameplay and content. Several Tencent anime games exhibited at the Firefly Carnival prove this point. For gameplay innovation, the anime shooter “Kalabi Pitch” is designed with paper figure characters and incorporates creative gameplay elements like dodging and climbing to provide players with novel experiences. “White Night Aurora” combines swipe touch technology with match-three mechanics, developing a unique “Strategic Linking” gameplay.
In terms of content innovation, “Run! Cookie Run: Kingdom” has attracted many anime game players with its unique worldview and character design, breaking away from the traditional handsome men and beautiful women, and adopting a range of cute anthropomorphic cookie shapes. “Back to the Future: 1999” opted for a live2D artistic style paired with English voice acting, enhancing the players’ immersion in the story set in England.
This strategy of combining gameplay and content innovation has brought Tencent phase achievements, regaining the advantage in the anime game field, and providing breakthrough opportunities. Player reviews of “White Thorn Corridor” and “Kalabi Pitch” on TapTap show that Tencent’s innovative approach has received a positive response.
Unlike other manufacturers that rely solely on “in-house development + market distribution,” Tencent has built a more diversified relationship with its anime games. For instance, “White Night Aurora” was developed by Tencent’s wholly-owned subsidiary Netease Technology, and Tencent also invested in the developer of “Back to the Future: 1999,” Guangzhou Deep Blue Interactive Network Technology Co., Ltd., becoming its second-largest shareholder.
Over the past five years, Tencent has invested in over a hundred cultural and entertainment companies, including anime game developers such as Chao Lu Games, Scatter Network, Deep Blue Interactive, Dragon Craftsman Network, and Sugar Tang Games, as well as development service providers like eBrain, Unity, and Clout Games, and companies with their own content IP like Webzen Saint Tang. This extensive strategic layout is not limited to the domestic market. Internationally, Tencent has invested and arranged in enterprises in the film and online text IP fields, such as KADOKAWA Group and Skydance Media, as well as in the game field with long-established Japanese Galgame developer Key. This has not only gained international industrial chain resources and capabilities but has also deepened their understanding of game narrative and gameplay design.
Tencent’s strategic layout in the anime field shows its profound insight into the industry and a global, large-scale coverage. Unlike other leading anime manufacturers, Tencent promotes market expansion and cultivation through close integration with the industrial chain, taking a group-based approach, aiming for joint prosperity with other manufacturers in the industrial chain, driving the development of the entire anime field, and thereby making a greater market contribution.
Tencent’s strategy of “nurturing race tracks” has been proven in the market. For example, looking back 15 years ago, MOBA games were considered a niche market due to their high learning curve and difficulties with competitive balance. However, Tencent, by focusing on the distinctively featured League of Legends developed by Riot Games, successfully expanded the MOBA PC game market. After accumulating years of operational experience and strengthening its R&D capability, Tencent launched Honor of Kings with hundreds of millions of daily active users in 2015, making MOBA an important pillar for Tencent and even the domestic gaming market.
In the action game track, Tencent has also invested in a number of domestic and foreign development companies. For instance, FromSoftware, as the developer leading the new trend in the “Soulsborne” action game track, received game of the year awards for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Elden Ring in 2019 and 2021 respectively. Games such as Bayonetta and NieR: Automata developed by PlatinumGames are also popular with players. As a domestic independent game developer, Game Science’s Black Myth: Wukong has become a focus of attention for gamers and is expected to be released in 2024.
As it stands, the anime-style game market remains vibrant. According to data from the gaming committee, the actual sales revenue of the anime mobile game market in 2023 is about 31.707 billion yuan, maintaining a growth rate of over 30% from last year. The revenue share of this market is about 14%, showing it still possesses tremendous vitality and growth potential within the entire gaming industry. Moreover, it’s worth noting that while no one can stay young forever, a new generation of young people continually enter the market, bringing endless hope and potential to the anime-style game market.
As the generation born after the 2000s and 2010s gradually become the main consumers of digital content, anime culture, due to its alignment with the aesthetics and expressive needs of these younger groups, is moving towards the mainstream. This cultural sphere focuses on content, emotions, and aesthetic sales, and in contrast, traditional characteristics centered on numerical values are likely to be more widely accepted. According to the creative team behind Cookie Run: Kingdom in an interview, the audience for anime games is no longer limited to a small specific group, but has evolved into a broad category.
After many game genres have experienced involution in art and modeling, a new challenge becomes clear for game developers: how to adapt to and facilitate the expansion of anime games into a broader market, and how to use popular anime games to attract and retain more young people with diverse interests.
Reviewing the past decade or more, we can see how once niche MOBA games have become part of the Asian Games, with Honor of Kings boasting hundreds of millions of daily active users, as well as the transformation of more hardcore console gaming experiences into the widely followed Genshin Impact. The success and failure of many categories have revealed a pattern: niche segments with vitality need to rely on unique content and gameplay to serve and educate a wider general audience in long-term competition, to make their culture mainstream, and to continually generate dividends.
Looking at Tencent’s layout in the two-dimensional game field, they understand that the key to attracting young anime-style gamers is to respect market norms, expand the market through unique gameplay and content, and seek to find their own blue ocean amongst the red battleground. We have reasons to expect that Tencent, a company skilled at nurturing the market through gameplay and providing mass services, is quietly rising anew, and trying to retell familiar stories to a new generation of young users.
