China’s NetEase cleared to launch another battle royale clone for mobile, while Tencent waits for Fortnite
- NetEase’s FortCraft gets the go-ahead for monetisation before Fortnite in China
China’s No. 2 gaming company NetEase has been cleared for the full launch of a new battle royale game for mobile in the country, while its bigger rival Tencent Holdings is still waiting for permission to monetise the genre’s biggest hits, PlayerUnknown’s BattleGround and Fortnite.
What makes things worse for the Fortnite publisher in China is that the NetEase game is almost identical to Fortnite.
China’s top content regulator on Friday approved a new batch of 95 video games for domestic launch, and among them were NetEase’s FortCraft. As with any other battle royale title, in FortCraft up to 100 players are parachuted onto an island where they have to scavenge for weapons and armour, fighting until the last one stands.
China’s gaming market, the world’s largest, suffered its slowest growth in at least a decade last year amid the approvals hiatus. About 700 new games have now been approved for distribution in China since the SAPP resumed work at the end of December, including offerings from both Tencent and NetEase.
But PUBG and Fortnite are among the biggest games still in the pipeline for approval, which has cast a shadow over near-term gaming revenue at Tencent, which has the exclusive rights to publish the two games in China.
While the Shenzhen-based company has attracted millions of players for its two mobile adaptations of PUBG and a desktop version of Fortnite via trial runs in China, it still needs government licences to monetise these free-to-play titles through in-game purchases, such as character outfits and weapon skins.
Meanwhile, Tencent has yet to launch Fortnite’s mobile version in China, which requires a separate licence. Now NetEase has a precious window of opportunity to cash in from its Fortnite clone, before Chinese gamers are allowed to spend money on the real version.
Last year, Fortnite made US$2.4 billion outside China, and now holds the record for the highest annual revenue of any video game in history, according to research firm SuperData. Its mobile version grossed an estimated US$455 million, according to data from Sensor Tower.
This would not be the first time for NetEase to have an edge over Tencent when it comes to the monetisation of battle royale games.
Despite the alleged copyright violation, Knives Out was the top-grossing mobile title in the battle royale genre in 2018, with US$465 million in revenue, according to estimates by Sensor Tower. Japan and China were the title’s two largest territories by player spending.
NetEase reported 11 billion yuan (US$1.64 billion) in online games revenue for the last quarter of 2018, up 38 per cent year-on-year and accounting for over half of total revenue. The Beijing-based company is adding headcount to its gaming business while retrenching from other parts, said CEO and founder Ding Lei on the sideline of Beijing’s annual political gathering last week.
Additional reporting by Meng Jing
