News

Ubisoft and Ketchapp eye China mobile market with Tencent deal

Partnership gives publishers access to 980 million monthly active users of Weixin app

Date Type Companies involved Size
January 15th, 2018 partnership KetchApp
Tencent
Ubisoft
Not disclosed
Ubisoft and Ketchapp eye China mobile market with Tencent deal

Ubisoft has partnered up with Chinese games giant Tencent to bring a number of casual titles from its mobile games subsidiary Ketchapp to the Chinese market.

The deal Ketchapp’s games released on Tencent’s newly-launch mobile Weixin mini-game app, which works similar to Facebook Instant Games. This lets players access a wide selection of games in Weixin without downloading additional applications.

With 980 million monthly active users, Weixin (WeChat for mainland China users) is the most popular mobile app in China and offers Ubisoft and Ketchapp the chance to significantly increase their reach in the country.

Copycat sparks partnership?

“We’re excited that a selection of our successful and diverse portfolio of casual games, which already is supported by one of the largest mobile gaming communities, is now coming to Tencent’s new application,” said Ketchapp co-founders Antoine and Michel Morcos.

“Weixin Mini-Game offers Chinese players instant access to a wide range of fun and challenging games. We have witnessed the massive success of Jump Jump (tiao yi tiao) and we are delighted by this collaboration between Ubisoft and Weixin, two of the most innovative and respected companies in their respective industries.

“Being one of the first partners selected by Tencent to provide gaming experiences for Weixin Mini-Game is great news for our fans and the Weixin community.”

The news comes shortly after accusations that Tencent had coped Ketchapp's hyper-casual mobile game Bottle Flip on the Weixin mini-games platform.

Its game Tiao yi tiao (Jump to jump) closely resembles Ketchapp's popular title, and Tencent admitted many of these titles "paid respect to classic works, innovation and habits of technology".

As noted in the statement from the Ketchapp founders above, it appears the the copycat title is what sparked this new partnership.


Head of Content

Craig Chapple is a freelance analyst, consultant and writer with specialist knowledge of the games industry. He has previously served as Senior Editor at PocketGamer.biz, as well as holding roles at Sensor Tower, Nintendo and Develop.