“We’re going to buy into high-end game developers and start developing free-to-play content for developing markets,” Steve Gray, the executive in charge of game development at Tencent, told Reuters at a gaming industry panel in Shanghai last month. To achieve similar success Tencent needs games, and is willing to pay top dollar to bring in talent, not just in China, but globally. Tencent has a 13.8 percent stake in Kakao. Three months after Kakao released Kakao Game last August, its monthly revenue soared ninefold to $35.3 million. In looking to monetize its mobile platform, Tencent is following the likes of South Korean firm Kakao Inc’s KakaoTalk and Japan’s NHN Corp’s Line. By paying for in-game upgrades - such as buying extra lives - users temporarily get one-up on their friends, and Tencent gets their money. Instead, WeChat’s social networking features encourage friendly competition between players and their contacts by sharing scores. Tencent doesn’t charge users to download and play WeChat’s ‘freemium’ games such as Tiantian Ai Xiaochu, which is similar to “Candy Crush Saga”, the world’s top grossing app, according to Think Gaming. The company, led by billionaire CEO and Chairman Pony Ma, last week released an update to WeChat, or Weixin, hoping the addition of games, paid-for emoticons, or stickers, and a mobile payment system will help it cash in on a client base of more than 300 million people. Tencent headquarters is seen at Nanshan Hi-Tech Industrial Park in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen June 9, 2011.
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