China’s regulation body for video game licensing —National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA)— excludes Tencent yet again. The global publishing leader didn’t get a single approval in the last 11 months from the NPPA, along with another major publisher and rival, NetEase.
NPPA approved 60 games in the past three months (58 of them are mobile games), perhaps even signaling an end to China’s games license restrictions. However, Tencent is yet to get approval for publishing licenses at home, hence publishing its flagship game globally seems like a solid plan.
Honor of Kings is going global via Level Infinite
Launched by Tencent back in December 2021, Level İnfinite aims to deliver games to a global audience, and that’s exactly what the company will do with Honor of Kings. Tencent’s publishing body officially announced the news on Twitter, saying “We will be rolling out Honor of Kings by TiMi Studio Group to you global gamers by the end of this year!”, while adding that closed beta tests will start come July 2022.
In the latest financial report, Tencent announced that local gaming (China) revenue fell 1%, while international gaming revenue increased to 4%, reaching $1.6 billion in total. Considering how the gaming giant can’t get a publishing license at home and seeing increased profits internationally year on year, the rolling out of Honor of Kings abroad seems like a solid strategy on the surface level.
Tencent actually tried to push Honor of Kings globally before, dubbed Arena of Valor back in 2017, with an aggressive advertising plan if I may add. The game initially made waves but failed to create a strong player base, and then struggled to keep the existing players even.
