×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Interest
How Tencent Sees the Future of Anime & Games

posted on by Kim Morrissy
Hint: It involves live service games

With Tencent stepping up its involvement in Japanese anime and games, how does the Chinese digital media company perceive the future of these mediums? Juno Shin, vice general manager at Tencent Games, offered some insight at TIFFCOM's "The potential of Games x Anime as perceived by Tencent Games" seminar on Tuesday.

First, he commented that, due to COVID, there's been a diversification of video and game distribution platforms, and it also easier to access content digitally. For example, it is trivial nowadays to release games on Steam, even if only 8% of new titles sell more than 10,000 copies. The biggest challenge now is retaining consumer attention in a media landscape with endless content but only a fixed amount of time.

Thus, Tencent sees growing importance in live service games and subscription-based models. Anime and games aren't just works of media that can be measured in terms of physical copies sold. The conventional wisdom used to be that if you had an IP covered across multiple mediums, you would reach the highest number of users, but nowadays the idea is to use cross-media formats to retain active engagement with a core audience. More increasingly, the Key Performance Indicators are things like daily active users and number of views.

Tencent highlighted several social media platforms, saying that they all have a different kind of reach that should be considered carefully. Discord and Reddit are most ideal for targeting the core enthusiasts, while YouTube and TikTok have the biggest audiences, but are also the most casual. Twitter and Instagram are somewhere in-between.

Another promotional strategy is to collaborate with other popular media franchises. By targeting properties that are big in different regions, you can expand your IP's worldwide appeal. For example, Fortnite could grow in Japan by collaborating with Dragon Ball. Shin also highlighted Puzzle & Dragons for its frequent updates and collaborations for over 10 years.

He also commented on animated collaborations like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Arcane, which leveraged the creative talents at internationally renowned studios. These high quality works were able to introduce an entirely new audience to the games they were inspired from, as well as revitalize interest among lapsed players. Going forward, Shin is anticipating big results from the NieR:Automata and Genshin Impact anime. In the case of Genshin Impact in particular, it will help players stick with the live service game.

Finally, the seminar addressed Tencent's ongoing partnership with Kadokawa. The two companies co-funded I'm Quitting Heroing (pictured top-right), and they plan to jointly invest further in anime in particular. This way, Shin claims, Kadokawa can increase the quality of the animation, which was a big sticking point throughout the presentation. In order to stand out among the crowd, it is not enough to compete on quantity—high quality is a must. Tencent also plans to complement Kadokawa's strengths by publishing video games for popular franchises, such as the Re:Zero Infinity mobile game which launched in Japan on October 13.

Going forward, Shin says, anime and games will become inseparable.

Source: TIFFCOM 2022 Online Seminar


discuss this in the forum (9 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

Interest homepage / archives