tencent – The Gaming News Corner

Riot Games Announces Several Games for 10th Anniversary

Not to be outshined by Fortnite, Riot Games has announced several games for their 10th Anniversary.

Teamfight Tactics for Mobile

TFT released this year during the rise of the Autochess genre. Despite coming out later than Steams’ Autochess, TFT is the most popular on Twitch streaming as of this article. The mobile version is cross-play so you can play competitively on the go! You can pre-register for the game now.

Legends of Runeterra

First Autochess, now card games. League of Runeterra is Riot’s new online card game. The game features factions based on Runeterra’s lore and League of Legends champions. You can play on PC and Mobile devices and will be free to download. You can watch people currently stream it for League’s 10th anniversary.

League of Legends: Wildcard

Wildcard is the mobile and console version of League of Legends. The map is still the same but controls are adjusted for mobile and console play. Some champion mechanics are changed. You can see Ashe’s Ultimate is controllable in this version. The game is currently in Alpha stages but is expected to release in 2020

League of Legends Fighting Game (Project L)

During the stream for the 10th anniversary, you can catch a brief glimpse of Riot’s new fighting game. Riot acquired Radiant Entertainment who had worked on the PC fighting game Rising Thunder. Although Riot announced it at EVO this year, this is the first screenshot of the game. There is no planned release date at this time.

Project L: Riot fighting game pic.twitter.com/qbvi0qtPAs

— Wario64 (@Wario64) October 16, 2019

Project F and Project A

Two new potential games were also shown off. A 3D dungeon crawler was Project F and Project A was a tactical shooter similar to Overwatch.

Tencent and Riot are working together for a Mobile League of Legends Game

Tencent, the Chinese Enterprise Company, is working with Riot‘s U.S. team to develop a mobile version of League of Legends. The MOBA is still going strong despite being a 10-year-old game. During their Mid-Season Invitationals, it gained almost 1.1 million viewers globally. Riot was bought by Tencent back in 2015.

Despite Tencent owning Riot, the company has had a strained relationship. Riot didn’t want to develop a mobile game for Tencent several years ago. Mobile gaming is Tencent’s most popular platform. Most video games they publish is for the mobile market.

Tencent then developed a mobile Battle Moba called “Honour of Kings” in 2015 in China. It did extremely well and had over 200 million players in 2017. It was eventually ported to the West and was renamed “Arena of Valor.” The game didn’t click well in the Western Market but it did cause the relationship between Riot and Tencent to grow worse. Tencent has had a difficult time gaining a popular game in the West.

The mobile game isn’t expected to release in 2019 and details of the game are still uncertain. It may not actually be a League of Legends mobile version as Tencent has not responded.

Riot has been difficulties making a large profit. Although they made 1.4 billion dollars last year, it is still 21% less than in 2017. “League of Legends is not doing as well as it used to and so Riot badly needs a new way to monetise the game, especially considering that it is Riot’s only game,” said Gu Tianyi, an Amsterdam-based analyst from Newzoo.

Despite this, League of Legends is still extremely popular. The League of Legends World Championship Finals 2018’s biggest e-sports tournament boasted 81.1 million hours in live hours watched across Twitch and YouTube Gaming. According to Newzoo, it is 24.7% of the total PC gaming market.

Sources:

Reuters

Eurogamer

China will begin restricting Game Releases to “Reduce strain on kid’s eyes”

China has always been strict on video game releases. As a country with massive censorship and regulations, video games are difficult to release. This month, China started a video game freeze to prevent new game releases which made many studios and developers nervous. China has the highest sale potential outside of the United States. The gaming industry in China was expected to have over $24 billion in revenue in 2018 according to Newzoo. Unfortunately, China recently announced they will start regulating video game releases.

Chinese president, Xi Jinping, stated the game regulations are ruining children’s eyes. A recent growth in myopia (nearsightednesses) in China has caused great concerns. While reports from the BBC and Professors state it may due to excessive studying and lack of sunlight, the Chinese government believe it’s a different goat.

“With a wave of my hand, you will see again!”

The regulations are still blurry at the moment but expect heavier censorship from China. New video game releases will be heavily moderated and limited and reduce the number of online games available. In response to the changes, Tencent’s stock has dropped by 5% in a single day. Tencent is a game publisher in China and they own Riot (League of Legends) and has huge stock in Epic (Fortnite). They were supposed to release Monster Hunter World in China but it was pulled off the market due to “complaints.” The removal may have been due to the proposed video game regulation.