Hot on the heels of Tencent’s 2023 earnings is my latest — Focus: Tencent's next level up: fewer big foreign franchise games, more in-house
* Tencent has sent hundreds of people including those behind "Assassin's Creed Jade" to support the release of “DreamStar”. Thus, the AC mobile game is facing a potential delay to 2025.
* Tencent has snubbed those ostensibly niche genres that have handed its rivals breakout hits. Now it’s encouraging teams to explore niche genres.
* Tencent has been more aggressive in negotiating down revenue split percentage with game IP holders. In some cases, Tencent is only willing to concede 10% of sales to IP holders.
* Tencent has signed a ton of foreign video game IPs. In some ways, they have more than what they know to do with. In some cases, they struggle to find ways to adapt these franchises for the mobile platforms.
* Tencent CSO’s comments last night were telling: "We're focusing on fewer bigger budget games. Typically, we're seeking to make the biggest bets around games that either iterate on a successful IP ... or games that are iterating around proven gameplay success within a niche and taking those to a more mass market.”
* The pressure is on for Tencent to deliver new hits. Tencent's top two games saw revenue slide during the week-long Lunar New Year holidays in February. "Honor of Kings" and "PUBG Mobile/Peacekeeper Elites", which are nine and seven years old respectively, suffered 7% and 30% drops compared to the holiday period last year.