Data & Research

Plants vs. Zombies 2 and Temple Run 2 hottest western games in China

Wandoujia reveals its top foreign games for first 6 months

Plants vs. Zombies 2 and Temple Run 2 hottest western games in China

Everyone knows that the Chinese mobile game market is now the biggest in terms of downloads, and will likely overtake the US as the #2 most lucrative market in 2014.

But how can foreign developers access this market?

The answer is localisation, culturalisation and working with a trusted partner - that's the conclusion from the latest data from Chinese app store Wandoujia (Sweet Pea).

Going local

It's looked at the top downloads from foreign-developed games on its app store during the first six months of 2014.

It labels all of the top six as having a local publisher.

(In the case of Plants vs. Zombies 2, it's listed as having a local studio thanks to the input of EA's local PopCap China studio, which handles all EA's mobile releases in China.)

Top foreign downloads on Wandoujia in H1 2014

As for the next five games, all are western-developed but released by local publishers such as TalkWeb, iDreamsky and Yodo1, with significant rebranding of artwork for local tastes.

For example, the Chinese version of Temple Run 2  published in China by iDreamsky features Chinese celebrity Liu Yan.

Liu Yan dressed in Temple Run-style

[source: Wandoujia]

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.