Take-Two Brings NBA Game To China, Launches 2K Online With Tencent
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Take-Two Interactive (NSDQ: TTWO) is ready to make its first big leap into the online gaming arena, and it’s partnering with Chinese internet and gaming portal Tencent to do it. The publisher has inked a multi-year deal with Tencent to launch the best-selling NBA 2K sports franchise in China. It’s an attempt to capitalize on a number of regional trends: the growing popularity of the NBA in China, the booming Chinese online gaming market (which grew by 61 percent last year to reach $2.75 billion in revenue) and the strength of sports game franchises for online play in Asia (FIFA Online is generating around $1 million in monthly revenues from micro-transactions for EA in Korea).
Take-Two said the game is currently in development, but didn’t give a release date; NBA 2K Online will feature all the current teams and players when it goes live. Tencent is an ideal partner for the launch; the company already runs five massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in addition to multiple social networks and IM platforms—and it reported Q408 profits and revenues that were up almost 80 percent year-over-year.
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Partnering also seems like the best way for U.S.-based publishers to deal with multiple languages, currency conversions and game infrastructures: Activision Blizzard subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment, for example, licenses MMOs like World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 to Chinese portal NetEase. Release.
Posted In: E-Commerce, Payment Systems, Micropayments, Entertainment, Games, Countries, Asia, China, take-two interactive, tencent
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