Free-to-play games were born in Asia, and it’s easy to see why gaming is growing at a faster clip over there. In fact, the largest free-to-play PC online game in the world is Tencent/SmileGate’s CrossFire, which generated $957 million in revenues last year.
The most active acquirers of mobile apps
Five of last year’s top ten free-to-play online games came from Asia. It’s worth noting that China’s Tencent, the majority of owner of League of Legends creator Riot Games, generated more than $5.3 billion in revenue from games in 2013, making it the largest game company in the world, eclipsing even Activision Blizzard with $4.8 billion.
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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.
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