Supercell makes US$852 M on US$2.24 B in 2021 revenue

A YOY 51%+ FOR REVENUE

•   Supercell reported its revenues hit US$2.24 billion, YoY up 51% and before-tax profits of US$852 million, YoY up 84% for 2021
•  Supercell’s cumulative revenues to date from Clash of Clans and Clash Royale alone have grossed more than US$10 billion
•  Helsinki-based Supercell publishes its financial results once a year per Finnish law
•  In terms of lifetime results over 11 years, Supercell’s games have each grossed over $1 billion in revenues and have had five billion downloads (Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Brawl Stars, Boom Beach, and Hay Day)
•  Supercell has invested in 14 like-minded game development studios
•  The most live beta games in ten years(Everdale, Clash Quest, Clash mini, Clash heroes)

Roblox bookings grow 20% to US$770.1M in Q4

ROBLOX’S GROWTH SLOWS AS EPIDEMIC EASES: SHARE PRICE DROPS 14%

•  Roblox has done well among its target audience of children and teens during the pandemic, as players turned to it for remote, socially distanced play with their friends at a time when they couldn’t meet in-person
•  Roblox gets a 30% cut from the bookings generated by sales of Robux, the virtual currency used by players to play user-generated games, the company’s bookings for 2020 were $1.9 billion, double what they were the year before
•  Roblox’s games have become so popular that people have played the best ones billions of times

 PUBG Mobile boosts Krafton’s 2021 revenues to record-highs of US$1.57 billion

RELEASE OF BATTLEGROUNDS MOBILE INDIA AND PUBG NW STATE BOOSTED Q4 SALES

•  Krafton reported Q4 revenues of US$371.3 million, an increase of 26% YoY, with PUBG Mobile responsible for US$253.7 million of this figure. The firm has attributed the release of Battlegrounds Mobile India and PUBG New State for the boost in sales
•  For the year, Krafton generated US$1.57 billion in revenue, an increase of 13% YoY. Similarly, the majority of revenue was generated by PUBG Mobile which was responsible for US$1.18 billion
•  PUBG Mobile was the highest-grossing game of 2021 and generated over US$2.8 billion across all of its versions, including the localised version of the game for China, Game for Peace
•  Looking forward, Krafton is gearing up to release new mobile titles in 2022, including Road To Valor: Empires from Dreamotion and Defense Derby from RisingWings

Krafton acquires Smash Legends dev 5minlab for US$19.9 million

KRAFTON SECURES AN INDEPENDENT STUDIO WITH OUTSTANDING DEVELOPERS

•  Krafton has fully acquired South Korean mobile developer 5minlab, the studio behind Smash Legends.
•  Krafton picked up 100% of 5minlab’s shares through a US$19.9 million earn-out payment. As Krafton aims to strengthen its game-related capabilities, the acquisition should support this goal
• Since its founding in 2013, 5minlab has developed and serviced a number of cross-platform games. Titles include the PvP action game Smash Legends, Como in Adventure, Toy Clash, Brickscape

Genshin Impact Developer Mihoyo Rebrands Itself As Hoyoverse

NEW CROSS-MEDIA BRAND SERVES GLOBAL AUDIENCE

• miHoYo is getting an international rebrand as it expands its cross-media universe
•  The brand aims to create and deliver an immersive virtual world experience to players worldwide through a variety of entertainment services
• The company is expanding offices around the world, including Los Angeles, Montreal, Seoul, Singapore, and Toky; Montreal studio is developing an open-world paranormal shooter
• Team Insight:

1. The company will continued to be called miHoYo in China, where the core game development will still take place. However, internationally the new name will be used for tangential projects including AI research and cross-media ideas
2. The rebranding as being only applicable to the Western populace; considering miHoYo recently forced to censor some of its character designs in China to appease the CCP, can assume it’s a move by the studio to try to distance its Western operations from its Chinese works

Tencent Launches New XR Business

EMBRACING THE METAVERSE

• Tencent has reportedly launched a new business involving extended realit and has started an internal recruitment process with over 40 open positions
• The XR business unit aims to create a world-class tech team, covering content creation, research & development and management
• Insight:

1. Tencent is currently in talks with gaming smartphone maker Black Shark to acquire the company. Upon the completion of the acquisition, Black Shark is said to drop its smartphone business and focus on the research and development of VR equipments
2. This possible acquisition would mirror ByteDance’s acquisition of Pico or Meta’s acquisition of Oculus
3. It is a pattern for big techs to acquire VR companies to ensure they have the technological infrastructure in order to stay competitive in the metaverse

App Annie rebrands to data.ai with focus on unified data AI

BUNGIE CREATED FRANCHISES AS HALO & DESTINY

• App intelligence firm App Annie has revealed that it has changed its name to Data.ai
• The firm has stated that the name change is to better reflect the company’s vision to drive "comprehensive digital performance" with products and partnerships
•  Data.ai will combine consumer and market data to "fuel digital insights" through the utilisation of AI, which it is calling Unified Data AI
• The firm will now focus its operations across multiple digital channels, including web, console, OTT, and streaming services

 US tags Tencent, Alibaba platforms as ‘notorious markets’

US & CN TECH WAR WILL FORCE SOUTHEAST OF ASIAN REGION GOVERNMENTS TO MAKE TOUGH CHOICES

• The US government has placed the ecommerce sites of Tencent and Alibaba under its “notorious markets” list for copyright piracy, reported Reuters
• AliExpress and WeChat made the list as they “reportedly facilitate substantial trademark counterfeiting,” Reuters quoted the US Trade Representative’s office as saying
•  This comes amid the US and China’s ongoing “technology war,” with pundits seeing tough decisions for Southeast Asian players within the horizon
• Team Insight:

1. The dominance of these two countries in the tech sector undoubtedly has strategic implications for Southeast Asia, which predominantly relies on importing and using AI technology from the US and CN
2. Southeast of Asia’s dependency on technologies coming from the two AI superpowers may disadvantage the nations of the region
3. Some experts said that the exploitation of data would occur with or without the involvement of foreign companies. They noted that since Southeast Asia’s data protection regulations are either weak or non-existent, similar harms from misusing data collection would arise in any event with local players

Hero Interactive new game studio: Pan studio is working on an original IP waifu RPG

NEW GAME STUDIO

•   Panshen Studio is a new studio belong to Hero interactive which was officially established in April 2021
•  The team has 50+ staff and working on an original IP title, the game will be waifu RPG with a Western classical mythology

Krafton CEO backs US$3m round of Vietnamese NFT game

SUMMONERS ARENA MIXES TRADITIONAL AND BLOCKCHAIN GAMING ELEMENTS

•   Summoners Arena, a blockchain-based fantasy game, has won US$3 million in seed money from a round led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures as well as Chang-Han Kim, CEO of PUBG developer Krafton
•  Established by gaming firms OneSoft, Zitga, and Sonat, the game features unique NFTs that can be used to battle in-game
•  The title is set to launch with two different versions – a free-to-play (F2P) version and a play-own-earn (POE) version – which is akin to hit game Axie Infinity where players generate and own their digital assets
•  Hung Tran founded Summoners Arena in 2o21. He is also a co-founder of OneSoft and the CEO of ABI Game Studio