TENCENT GAME SPIN-OFF WINS APP STORE AWARD
Apple conferring rare international accolade for Chinese title is a bright spot amid gloomy times for country’s video gaming and esports industry
League of Legends Esports Manager, co-developed by Chinese technology giant Tencent Holdings and its US subsidiary Riot Games, has been named among the 2022 winners of the Apple App Store Awards, in a rare international accolade for a Chinese title.
The video game was awarded China Game of the Year, the first time the US tech giant has created a separate category for a game from an individual country. Apex Legends Mobile, co-developed by Electronics Arts and Tencent, won iPhone Game of Year, while Moncage, a puzzle adventure game developed by Chinese indie studio Optillusion and published by XD in March 2020, was named iPad Game of the Year.
In total, Apple selected 16 winners, including BeReal, the hit photo sharing app originally developed in France. As well as the League of Legends spin-off and Moncage, the other Chinese app named in the awards was GoodNotes 5, a note-taking app by Hong Kong-based Time Base Technology, which won the iPad App of the Year award.
In China, the App Store has come under increasing pressure to comply with Beijing’s strict data and internet licensing requirements. For example, on December 31, 2020 more than 40,000 game apps disappeared from the App Store in China to comply with a new requirement that only licensed games be made available to Chinese players.
China’s new data security and personal information protection laws have also increased the cost and difficulty of delivering overseas apps to Chinese users – on top of the challenges presented by Beijing’s strict content censorship.
According to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China had 1.35 million apps in the App Store as of the end of 2021, down from 1.4 million at the end of 2020.
The Tencent game was released in July this year, and quickly became a hit, ranking No 4 among mobile game sales in mainland China in the first week. During that time, it generated more than 2 million downloads and over US$5 million of revenue, according to app tracker Qimai.
As a spin-off from Riot’s flagship League of Legends, the esports manager version uses artificial intelligence to simulate real situations in actual matches, allowing players to act as esports team managers, deploying capabilities and the positions of real professional players.
It has so far incorporated 17 teams from the League of Legends Pro League, China’s top-level professional esports tournament owned by Tencent. Riot said earlier it intended to expand the game to include players from other leagues.
It is only the second time Chinese games have won an Apple App Store award, after the hit mobile game Genshin Impact won iPhone Game of the Year in 2020.
The latest accolade was a bright spot amid gloomy times for China’s video gaming and esports industry, after the national team failed to reach the finals of the League of Legends World Championship, and as weak consumer sentiment and regulatory oversight depress the market.
The National Press and Publication Administration, China’s watchdog for video gaming, introduced a rule in August last year that limits gaming time for players under 18 to between 8pm and 9pm on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and statutory holidays. It has also been strict about issuing new game licences.
The government-backed China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association said it would postpone its annual conference scheduled for this month in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, citing the risk of Covid-19.