It’s been an interesting year in China with the industry coming off new restrictions as well as a pause in the registration of games (Any game with a payment requirement in China, needs to be registered with the government.) But a few trends that started to grow from earlier this year are beginning to gain steam this quarter, while some old trends are sticking around.

There are three big trends that our friends at Gamma Data shared in their latest WeChat post that we think you should know to help you if your strategy is to enter the market in 2020.  If you do want to enter China, contact Cocos, and let us help you find the right ways to enter instead of wasting time and effort doing it on your own.

For the full story (Chinese), click here: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/VR7Pnjp_LFqVVdX6kyY-Sg

More Variety Among Big Winners

A few years ago, the issue with looking at the top 10 was that the same games were pretty much in the same spots every month. But with the explosion of new IP that isn’t based on MMORPGs or Strategy games, the top 10 of today has grown in variety. But this doesn’t mean of the classics are still around such as Honor of King (MOBA, Tencent) and Shenwu 3 (MMORPG, Duoyi)

But the big takeaway from looking at the numbers is the variety of games that are hitting the top 200 are much different than you’d seen last year. It seems that gamers who were dominantly playing MMORPG, MOBA, and SLG games are starting to move towards a lot of new genres. It began with the popularization of shooters last year, but this year seems to have increased with the addition of hypercasual, racing, and other genres.

IP Games Are Becoming The Norm

This was something that started a few years ago with games using TV shows as well as more modern novels, or PC games for their game compared to the usual old Chinese novels and historical stories. This has brought about a lot more new IP to the top of charts in the coming years.

Game off IP from consoles like Call of Duty: Mobile and Game for Peace based on the console shooters games and new IP like Ulala: Idle Adventure are starting to make more money now compared to previous years.

So expect more companies to look for IP inside and outside China for their new games in 2020.

New Games Starting To Heat Up The Top 200 Again

Lots of good news that more new games are starting to hit the top 200 games after a poor showing in 2018 due to restrictions on licensing for the year. The bad news is that new games still only make up 11.5% of the list as in 2017, it was almost double that amount. The question is still being asked if new games will continue to increase or stay steady in the next few months.