China’s mobile game market is getting hotter — but winter may be coming

After a few scorching years, China’s mobile game market is at a turning point. Jeff Lyndon, the president and cofounder of China’s iDreamSky Technology, fears that a downturn is in the works.

China is expected to hit $25 billion in gaming revenue by 2016, according to market-researcher Newzoo. Shenzhen, China-based iDreamSky, which managed to go public last year, is a big beneficiary of that trend. Like other rivals, iDreamSky specializes in taking Western games and publishing them for the Chinese market. Pretty soon, the company will introduce Chinese mobile users to a favorite: Monument Valley.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.