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Chinese developers need to let PC games go, says LineKong CEO

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Chinese developers need to let PC games go, says LineKong CEO

LineKong is one of China's signature mobile game developers.

Back in 2012, it was a failing PC game publisher, but it decided to switch completely to mobile games.

Now it has sales of RMB 500 million ($81 million) in 2013, while predictions for 2014 are RMB 1.2 billion revenue ($190 million).

It's also rumoured to be seeking an IPO, although that issue wasn't directly commented on.

Instead, talking at GMGC 2014, CEO Feng Wang told the Chinese game industry to "Let PC games go".

Moving on

Wang discussed the company's turnaround, saying that LineKong had found that it entered the PC games market when there was too much competition.

"Mobile has a lot of opportunities. It has a huge amount of users. Much more than PC games, but you have to take the opportunity now," he said.

Online client and browser games still dominate the Chinese games market, with mobile accounting for around 13 percent of the market in 2013. But mobile games are growing incredibly quickly.

In terms of LineKong's transition, he said some in the industry had expected it to fail.

"But we are now the benchmark in mobile games because of our products. The secret of our success is perseverance," he explained.

In particular, Wang was keen to point out the success of the company's Sword series of games; it's launched three games in this series within 12 months and each one has been more successful that the previous.

What's next?

Yet, it's not been totally successful. LineKong hasn't yet been successful in the card and TD genres, which is why it's looking for thirdparty developers to fill that gap; it's currently expanding its publishing operations alongside its own internal development.

It expects to launch 10 games in 2014.

It also looking beyond the Chinese market, in particular it will be publishing in Korea and Taiwan, because of their similarities to the Chinese market.

"For the US and Europe markets, we need to make major changes to our games so we will work with publishers. Japan is also challenging because of its strong animation culture. Japanese games aren't popular in China, either," Feng noted.


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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.