Animoca Brands announced it has entered into an exclusive agreement with China’s leading digital entertainment and technology company Tencent to distribute its mobile game Armies of Dragons across the WeChat platform in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. The title will be distributed on the platform for a period of one year, on a revenue share agreement for funds generated from the title’s in-game purchase options. Armies of Dragons will be available for download on WeChat in November 2015.
Armies of Dragons is a medieval-themed Tower Defence strategy game originally released in August 2014. Defend your kingdom from rampaging hordes in this strategy and fortress defense game. Summon the power of the four elements, and elementally charge your armies before sending them to defend three lanes! Train, upgrade, and manage the growth of your warriors to forge a formidable army. The game received a good level of interest, garnering over 750,000 downloads since its launch back in August 2014.
WeChat is China’s most popular messaging service, with a footprint that extends well beyond the country’s borders: the platform has amassed well over a billion downloads and reached 600 million monthly active users at the end of the second quarter of 2015 (source: Tencent Q2 2015 financial earnings report). WeChat is expanding at a rapid pace, having added over 50 million accounts just in the second quarter of 2015.
The agreement with Animoca Brands feeds into an ongoing push from WeChat to diversify its offering and expand into new verticals, including gaming. The deal includes the right of first negotiation to exclusively publish and distribute sequel titles or games substantially similar to Armies of Dragons, which opens up further opportunities for the Company to publish additional games on WeChat in the future.
According to the Global Mobile Games Confederation (GMGC), messenger applications play a key role in distributing games in Asia. Games offered via messenger platforms dominate the region’s top grossing mobile game rankings. Asia Pacific is considered the world’s largest market for the mobile game industry. In 2014, the region’s 760 million mobile gamers generated US$ 13.6 billion in revenue, accounting for 55 per cent of the global mobile gaming market.
Source: Animoca
