Tencent Helps Game Developers Level Up for Worldwide Success

SAN FRANCISCO, March 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- In an appearance at this year's Game Developers Conference, Tencent Senior Vice President Steven Ma highlighted the company's commitment to helping developers create the next generation of quality games, which will be shaped by innovative gameplay, advanced online systems and a deep understanding of what gamers want and how they play.

Beginning from a late start in China's online game industry, Tencent has rapidly accumulated tremendous development, publishing and operational expertise to become one of the largest game companies in the world. According to AppAnnie, more than 200 million gamers outside China enjoy high quality interactive, immersive and instantaneous experiences every month from Tencent and its partners across a wide variety of genres and platforms. Today, Tencent and its partners offer 140 games in more than 200 countries.  

"Making games is a complex and risky art. We have tremendous admiration and respect for innovative game developers who drive the industry forward and deliver memorable emotional experiences to gamers," said Ma. "Tencent's role is to help game developers advance the art so they can succeed around the world. Our expertise, insights and tools liberate developers to create game experiences faster, with higher quality and lower risk."

Game developers today face three key challenges. One, development cycles are shorter than ever, while gamers have higher expectations for quality and experience. Two, operating a successful game requires heavy investment and continuous management. Three, global games require on-demand access around the world, frequent updates, world-class security and a rich understanding of community behavior and dynamics.

Tencent is dedicating significant resources and knowledge to helping game developers meet these challenges, so they can spend less time solving technical problems and more time doing what they do best: creating games. The company's robust set of technologies and solutions help game developers reach broader, more diverse global audiences, get deeper insight into those audiences, create new business models and better manage and monetize games.

Tencent pioneered the concept of gaming as a service, providing players with free services and charging for value-added services within games. This innovation made gaming accessible to people worldwide, creating global hits like Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile. It also established mobile gaming as a mainstream phenomenon. 

Innovation Drives Quality--And Quality Drives Worldwide Success

Tencent believes that sustainable industry growth requires the development of quality games. According to Ma, the company's investments, advanced insights and partner-focused approach to R&D allow game developers to drive quality by testing, exploring and developing innovative game genres, gameplay experiences and game services.

Tencent offers game developers an advanced, end-to-end platform for development, publishing, operations, distribution, social networking and eSports. It collaborates with the world's best game developers to explore new game concepts and new frontiers for development and supports independent developers through innovative programs like the Tencent Game Innovation Fund and Game Without Borders.

"We have a global, long-term view of the industry," said Ben Feder, President International Partnerships for North America. at Tencent. "That's why we're working with the best developers in the world, including Netmarble in South Korea, Garena in Singapore, Supercell in Finland and Epic Games and Riot in the United States, to dream big and deliver experiences that surprise and delight gamers."

A Next-Generation Platform for High Quality Games

Tencent technologies and solutions can help game developers with everything from R&D to operations and publishing--making it faster and easier to create and successfully operate games. Game developers benefit from rich insights based on big-data analysis and user-behavior research as well as tools to help test, optimize and improve games.

"What we've learned is that gamers around the world are very similar. They want to play quality games and they want to share that experience with others," said Ma. "At the same time, gamers live in different cultures and play games in different environments. That's why we've created an open platform that allows developers to bring more high-quality games to more people around the world."

Tencent also works with game developers to ensure a healthy, positive gaming experience, offering anti-cheating, anti-piracy and security solutions to ensure fairness and safety, including the ability to set time limits on daily play, and solutions to detect unauthorized or underage users.

ABOUT TENCENT

Tencent uses technology to enrich the lives of Internet users. Our social products Weixin and QQ link our users to a rich digital content catalogue including games, video, music and books. Our proprietary targeting technology helps advertisers reach out to hundreds of millions of consumers in China. Our infrastructure services including payment, security, cloud and artificial intelligence create differentiated offerings and support our partners' business growth. Tencent invests heavily in people and innovation, enabling us to evolve with the Internet.

Tencent was founded in Shenzhen, China, in 1998. Shares of Tencent (00700.HK) are traded on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong.

SOURCE Tencent