Honour of Kings, with 55 million live users in China and a monthly income of about $145 million, is Tencent's best-selling game.
But the development and marketing failures, coupled with the suspicions with Riot Games, an American subsidiary, led to the breakdown of Arena of Valor (AOV), an international version of King's Glory, in European and North American markets.
According to two sources from Tencent, Tencent has almost completely cancelled its original plan for AOV and disbanded its marketing team in Europe and the United States.
"In those markets, we let it die on its own," said one source, adding that AOV currently has only 100,000 and 150,000 live users in Europe and North America, respectively.
The source was not authorized to speak to the media, so he did not want to be named.
Since then, the company has dramatically adjusted its overseas market strategy, focusing more on local demand, and shifted to building partnerships, such as marketing with Singapore's Sea Ltd (SE.N). Tencent has also further expanded to games based on desktops and game consoles.
But while Tencent is trying to expand its Wechat communications tools and other services overseas, AOV's major failure raises questions about the company's international acumen.
"Tencent lacks experience in distribution channels and user demographic structure, so they don't know how to compete." IHS Markit game analyst Cui Chenyu said.
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