Last week the entire senior analyst team at Niko Partners gathered at Tencent America headquarters in Palo Alto, California in front of a roomful of gaming professionals to discuss their latest research and insights focused on the Asian, Middle East, and Northern Africa video games markets. At the event, Niko Partners provided additional context and detail [...]
Tencent and Niko invite you to join us at the Tencent America offices in Palo Alto for a deep dive into the Asian and MENA video game markets. For the first time, the Niko Partners senior team will be gathered in one place to discuss and answer questions about their latest research, providing additional context and [...]
The 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou took place in September and early October 2023 – after a long delay attributed to the pandemic. The Games’ Director explained, "This is the first Asian Games after the COVID-19 pandemic, so it will play a unique, inspiring and important role for the Asian people." It was an exciting Games, [...]
MENA – One Very Hot Video Games Market The MENA region is booming for gaming and esports according to Niko Partners’ ongoing tracking of the Asia & MENA games industry. As a result, event organizers and government agencies have initiated many conferences, exhibitions, and esports events in MENA countries. Niko Partners analysts have attended key events [...]
When foreign game companies decide on localizing languages in games to be published in Asia, the list of languages considered is typically limited to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean due to the massive game revenue of the markets using those languages. This could cause issues as not all gamers in the region are proficient in either English [...]
Did you know that esports has entered its golden jubilee this year? It has been 50+ years since the first-ever esports event took place at Stanford University in 1972 when 24 players competed in an Intergalactic Spacewar tournament, and the winner received a year’s subscription to the Rolling Stone magazine. Fast forward to 2023, technological advancement [...]
Blizzard Selling Overwatch Credits in China In accordance with the new regulations in China that require online game operators to disclose probability rates for random-chance loot boxes, Blizzard (through their JV with NetEase) announced their probability data. However, they are now taking a step beyond this effort and no longer selling loot boxes. Instead, in a [...]
NetEase Challenges Tencent's Stronghold On Mobile Publishing According to App Annie, NetEase has now replaced Tencent as the top mobile publisher by revenue worldwide as the company's apps continue to grow in China. "The big reason here for NetEase's surge is that it has the top two most lucrative games worldwide with the card-battling Onmyoji game [...]
Alibaba Reorganizes Entertainment Business Alibaba Holdings Group Ltd. is undergoing consolidation of their entertainment efforts by rounding up Youku Tudou Inc., UCWeb Inc., Alibaba Pictures Group Ltd, and company's sports, games, literature, music and digital entertainment divisions into a single group. There will also be a $10 billion yuan ($1.48 billion USD) fund for new projects [...]
China's iOS App Store Overtakes US in Spending Mobile analytics firm App Annie said that Chinese consumers spent USD 1.7 billion on Apple-sanctioned mobile apps in the third quarter, or about 15% higher than the nearly USD 1.45 billion spent by Americans during the same period. This is particularly remarkable considering the new regulations requiring licenses [...]
