Asia’s mobile games make themselves at home in the U.S.

APAC mobile gaming brands are becoming mainstream. Not only are they setting trends globally, they are also winning big when it comes to revenue. What’s next? After achieving huge success in their home territories of China and South Korea (and to a lesser extent, Japan, as it’s long had a Western presence in mobile), the next step for these lucrative APAC gaming companies points to the West.

Case in point: Chinese video game giant Tencent, the world’s largest game publisher, is investing heavily in the Western market. Mobile Marketing magazine reports that up to 40% of Tencent’s investments are outside of China: Just look at its deals with Epic Games, Supercell, Ubisoft, Frontier Developments, and Rovio Entertainment. Other Chinese companies, including Jagex, Outfit 7, and Netease, have shares in development studios. To further strengthen their foothold, these companies are also pursuing global game releases, international partnerships, and M&A. Additionally, we are seeing big APAC companies buying smaller gaming studios — Tencent recently acquired Swedish indie dev studio Sharkmob, so they will embark on several joint new projects, VentureBeat disclosed.