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The Mystery Behind the Popularity of Kings of Glory, the World’s Most Profitable Game

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The Mystery Behind the Popularity of Kings of Glory, the World’s Most Profitable Game

Southern Weekly,

5 min read
5 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

How did Tencent’s mobile game Kings of Glory achieve 50 million daily active users in less than 2 years?

Editorial Rating

8

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Recommendation

Online games used to be for nerds and geeks. Today, by one estimate, 44% of the Chinese population plays games. One game in particular, Tencent’s Kings of Glory (otherwise known as Honor of Kings/Strike of Kings/Arena of Valor), has achieved widespread popularity. The game has 200 million registered users, 50 million of whom are playing daily. As one player put it, “If you don’t play, you no longer share a common language with your peers and you become isolated.” Zhang Yue, reporting for Southern Weekend, looks at how this game infiltrated Chinese society. getAbstract recommends this article to sociologists, gamers, computer engineers, data analysts and social media company executives.

Summary

With Kings of Glory, game designers basically copied League of Legends (LoL), the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game that American company Riot Games created. Tencent first became the distributor of LoL in China and acquired Riot Games in 2011. LoL has more than 50 million monthly active users (MAUs) in China and has become the most played game in the world based on hours played. However, the game is PC-based, while mobile is a booming market for games in China. As 4G and wireless technology matured, China was ready for a mobile version of LoL. Two of Tencent’s subsidiary gaming studios competed with each other to create mobile versions of LoL. Kings of Glory was the winning product and went live in October 2015. Kings of Glory took LoL’s design and structure, but localized the product by making the characters famous figures from Chinese history ...

About the Author

Zhang Yue is a reporter for Southern Weekend, a Chinese newspaper based in Guangzhou. Southern Weekend is known for journalistic integrity and reporting that often pushes the limits of the Chinese government’s media censors. 


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