NetEase buys No More Heroes maker Grasshopper Manufacture

• NetEase has agreed to buy Japanese company, Grasshopper Manufacture, the maker of games such No More Heroes, Killer7, and Lollipop Chainsaw
• NetEase has been steadily expanding through investments, acquisitions, and publishing deals
• The Japanese game studio was founded in 1998 by Goichi Suda (also known as Suda51)
• In 2013, GungHo Online Entertainment acquired Grasshopper Manufacture and released Let It Die. But in 2018, the companies split apart. Grasshopper Manufacture launched No More Heroes III for the Switch this year
• Grasshopper will target making three high-quality games in the next decade
• Since the beginning of 2021, NetEase has invested a total of seven game companies, and its attention to Chinese and Japanese game studios has increased significantly
• Reasons that NewEase is investing more than ever

1. To expand the size of the team for 3A products
2. To Expand oversea markets - Using overseas IP games to open up the global market is one of NetEase's strategies
3. To broaden the product genre line

Tencent invested in 10 Heroes Studio, the mobile game developer of "Time to Hunt"

• Time to Hunt will be published by Bilibili and currently has 468,000 pre-reg on TapTap, with a score of 8.3
• Time to Hunt is a new waifu open world RPG with monster hunter theme

Activision acquires Digital Legends for its future Call of Duty mobile games

•  Activision Blizzard announced it has bought mobile game studio Digital Legends. The publisher’s new team will work on an unannounced Call of Duty mobile title
• Digital Legends previously developed and published cartoon-style shooter The Respawnables and a more realistic, Call of Duty-like game, Afterpulse
• Activision also announced the name of its in-house mobile gaming studio: Solid State. Big surprise — this studio is also working on Call of Duty content

PUBG company Krafton buys Subnautica developer Unknown Worlds

• Krafton, Inc., the company behind battle royale PUBG, has bought Subnautica developer Unknown Worlds for an undisclosed fee
• Unknown Worlds becomes Krafton's sixth studio, joining PUBG Studios, Striking Distance Studios, Bluehole Studio, RisingWings and Dreamotion
• Unknown Worlds began life creating the Half-Life mod, Natural Selection, which eventually spawned a commercial sequel. It went on to release underwater adventure game Subnautica and, most recently, follow-up Subnautica: Below Zero
• Unknown Worlds is currently working on "a new genre-defining game" due to launch into early access in 2022

Alibaba, Tencent rebrand NFT products amid tech crackdown

• Alipay, Alibaba’s payments arm, and Huanhe, Tencent’s non-fungible token (NFT) platform, have rebranded their artwork offerings as “digital collectibles.”
• The change in name comes amid a government campaign against the trading and mining of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies
•  Huanhe, which was once regarded as the first NFT trading marketplace in China, said it now requires users to use their real names on the platform

Bytedance delays IPO to 2022

• The TikTok owner is reportedly awaiting governmental approval, which unlikely to come until the Communist Party’s 20th congress takes place next autumn
• ByteDance was also supposedly advised “not to rush” its public listing. However, a representative from the company said that it does not have plans to launch an IPO

Tencent to build metaverse team with new gaming studio

• Tencent Holdings, which runs the world’s largest video gaming business by revenue, plans to sharpen its focus on metaverse-like developments by assembling an international team for a new studio that will develop advanced games for the next stage of the internet
• The company has created a dedicated F1 studio for this development, which has nearly 50 job openings
• The studio will involve employees across China, the US, Canada, and Singapore
• TikTok owner ByteDance is also seen to be taking steps into the space with the acquisition of VR startup Pico Interactive

 miHoYo joins Alibaba, Tencent, picking Singapore as key international hub

• miHoYo, the owner of Genshin Impact, is accelerating hiring in Singapore, covering positions in product, R&D, operations, overseas public relations, localization, marketing, branding, etc
• miHoYo  is the latest Chinese company to deepen its operation outside the mainland and raise its bets on the key international hub
• miHoYo is iming to implement a more in-depth localization strategy to better serve users in Southeast Asian countries including Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam
• Naturally, Singapore, known for its business-friendly policies and the beachhead for Southeast Asia, is the preferred place for Chinese tech firms to set up regional headquarter and expand their overseas business

Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta

• Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta on 28th Oct; Facebook.com is still Facebook.com, though
• This is a move to embrace the metaverse
• For a new generation of internet users, Roblox already provides many of the key elements that metaverse latecomers like Zuckerberg are still trying to figure out
• Roblox enables you to carry your character and digital wallet from one game to the next

Report finds social casino apps have generated nearly US$1B during pandemic

• Liftoff and GameRefinery released their mobile social casino apps report for 2021; According to the report, mobile gamers spent around US$990 million on social casino apps during the height of the pandemic, which it counts as Q3 2020 to Q2 2021
• Liftoff, a mobile growth and app marketing platform, and GameRefinery, a mobile gaming analytics platform, drew this data from ad impressions and clicks across 12 million installs and 239 apps
• Mobile casino apps are among the oldest demographic in gaming, with more than half being over 45. The userbase is also fairly evenly divided between men and women

Perfect World Q3 2021 Financial Report: Achieved a total revenue of ￥2.533 billion(US$360 million), and net profit attributable to the parent company was ￥542 million(US$ 85 million), a YoY+ of 1.18%

• The game business achieved a profit of approximately ￥550 million(US$86 million) in Q3 2021, mainly due to the steady release of performance contributions from new products such as "Fantasy New Jade Dynasty"
• In the first three quarters of 2021, Perfect World achieved a total revenue of ￥6.739 billion(US$1.1 billion)
• Fantasy New Jade Dynasty  Performances:

1.  In the first month of its launch, the game had a revenue of over ￥500 million(US$78 million)
2. The game has been stable in the top 20 of China's mobile game revenue list for two consecutive months on monthly rankings on Sensor Tower
3. The game is estimated that achieved revenue of about ￥1.2 billion(US$188 million)
4. In the fourth quarter, a revenue of ￥300(US$47 million) is expected

• Perfect World is focusing on MMO as the core genre and trying to open up new genres as well
• Tower of fantasy will be launched in 2021 and is expected to perform well with a pre-reg number of 12 million

Yoozoo Q3 2021 Financial Report: Achieved a revenue of ￥747 million(US$117 million), a YoY decrease of 38.11%

• In the first 3 quarters, the company achieved a total revenue of ￥2.514 billion(US$ 397 million), a YoY decrease of 32.49%
• Regarding the YoY decline in revenue, Yoozoo explained that it was mainly affected by the domestic and foreign epidemics in the same period last year, and a variety of products were launched in the same period last year
• In addition to the five major game studios in Shanghai, Beijing, and Chengdu, the Innovation Institute established by the company in June this year, and BigPoint in Germany, the company has 7 game studios, and the smallest team has nearly 100 people, and each team can support 2 products has formed at least 12 product pipelines
• Company will continuously focusing on CBG and SLG game genre

Paper Games announced new product: Ni Guang Qian Ru(逆光潜入）

• The game is developed by Shanghai Kong Ta Studio which wholly acquired by Paper Games in May 2021
• The game is under of development and not a female –oriented game

PUBG: New State will launch worldwide on November 11

• Krafton has revealed that PUBG: New State will launch on iOS and Android devices in over 200 countries on November 11th
• New State will be launched as a free-to-play next-generation mobile game and promises to bring the "full and uncompromised" PUBG battle royale gaming experience.; Set in the year 2051, Krafton assures players that New State will be one of the "most realistic and technologically advanced" mobile games to date
• The game has surpassed 50 million pre-registrations

Vietnam blockchain gaming studio nets US$6.8m in seed round

• Sipher, a Vietnam-based blockchain gaming studio, has raised US$6.8 million in a seed round led by Arrington Capital, Hashed, and Konvoy Ventures
• The blockchain gaming startup’s seed round is the second-largest for a Vietnamese blockchain gaming startup after that of Sky Mavis, the developer of Axie Infinity
• Sipher was founded earlier this year by Nguyen Trung Tin, who is also the CEO of property firm Trung Thuy Group and founder of co-working space provider Dreamplex
• Sipher aims to unify blockchain tech for artwork, storytelling, and multiplayer gaming with decentralized financial tech. The company is also developing an ecosystem where users can play for entertainment and get rewarded for time spent in the game
• It said Sipherian Surge, its first playable NFT, was sold out in less than 15 minutes of being available and that the asset can currently be accessed through trading and secondary purchase on NFT marketplace OpenSea

NetEase leads US$5 million round of virtual human startup

• NetEase led Next Generation’s funding round, which also saw participation from The Arena Capital, Shunwei Capital, and CCV Capital
• In July, Next Generation raised US$5 million as part of its series A funding round
• Since its inception, Next Generation has created a virtual persona – called AI Merror – and virtual avatars for celebrities such as Dilraba Dilmurat and Huang Zitao

Kuaishou Game Division has officially opened the recruitment of talents

• Kuaishou's game business department is officially upgraded focusing on related businesses such as self-developed games and cooperate game publishing for global users and developers
• According to the strategic plan, Kuaishou will set up studios in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu and other core game cities, and is currently in the process of establishing multi-category project teams focus on genres such as CBG, action RPG, shooting, SLG, SIM and the next-generation games

The Tourism and Sports Ministry and Sports Authority of Thailand (SAT) have partnered with Garena Online Thailand to strengthen the domestic e-sports industry and develop the country as the hub of e-sports tournaments in Asean

• The ministry and the SAT will focus more on e-sports next year including training and welfare to develop the e-sport ecosystem
• The e-sports industry across Asean was worth US$39 million in 2020 and is expected to grow to $72 million by 2024 as people spend more time playing online games amid the pandemic, according to the minister

NEW SWORDSMAN is launched in Thailand by Perfect World on 28th Oct

• The new MMORPG is launched in TH market by Perfect World on App store and Google Play Store
• The game is based on famous IP: Swordsman
• iOS/Google Play

SLIME - ISEKAI Memories launched in TW/HK/Mau/Japan/ID/TH

• The new RPG is published by Bandai Namco on 28th Oct globally
• iOS/Google Play

Tales of Luminaria will be published in Japan and oversea market on 4th Nov & 5th Nov by Bandai Namco

• Tales of Luminaria is a new Tales anime RPG for mobile from Bandai Namco
• Players can enjoy a high-quality anime RPG game with 21 protagonists
  

FINAL FANTASY VII THE FIRST SOLDIER started Pre-reg on 27th Oct

• The new Battle Royale mobile game will be published in Nov, 2021 by Square Enix
• The game is based on famous IP: final Fantasy