Back when this year was still new, we covered an announcement of collaboration between The LEGO Group and Tencent in order to enhance the former’s online branding in China. Part of the directive is the co-development of videogames through Tencent’s Games division. This September, such a game is nearing launch, with a still to be disclosed LEGO mobile game.
This Wednesday, September 12, the Chinese micro-blog service Weibo was inundated with advertising from Tencent Games about their soon-to-launch new online mobile game that was co-developed with the Danish toymaker. It only mentioned the release date, but it served enough to drum up interest in China’s massive base of gamers.
Tencent Gaming’s ads go: “Today, we announce a piece of good news. After a strategic cooperation in January, Tencent and LEGO Group will unveil a co-developed game on September 19.” This title is slated to be the first of hopefully many LEGO mobile game and Tencent licensed games to China and perhaps the world.
It’s well-known that China is the current (and perhaps, now permanent) gaming capital on Earth. Its reported number of active videogame players is actually larger than the entire population of the US. And Tencent Games is also the biggest videogame company now, despite only owning developers with their own titles and not making their own.
LEGO’s Tencent game, set to be revealed next week, hopes to take advantage of a dearth of issuing new licenses for game titles in the country while the Chinese Communist Party tries to increase its control over the gaming market.
Aside from video games, the LEGO-Tencent team-up also plans to open a LEGO media section on the Tencent Video streaming platform, to host some of its wide library of animated TV and feature films and series.
Source: South China Morning Post