Beijing based Rekoo is famous for its social game in Japan. Although it is a Chinese firm and has 90% of its 400 staff in the country, it is the number 1 social game developer in Japan’s leading social network, Mixi. It is also very popular in Gree, a mobile social network in Japan. And it has cooperated with KDDI, the third largest mobile operator in Japan to setup a mobile social game platform together. Currently, its social games have 2-3 million visitors everyday in Japan, or 3% of the country popular. Revenue from Japanese market reached several million USD a month.
This year, however, its CEO Liu Yong expected Japan market will only grow steadily. (Still, its means over 100%.) The explosive growth will be in China. Liu Yong expected revenue in China to grow from currently about Rmb 1 million a month to US$1-2 million a month by the end of this year.
Why?? Because it just sealed a deal with Tencent. “We have just become Tencent’s strategic partner. We will be the first to get access to its many features,” said Liu Yong. QQ has over 600 registered users. With the promise of a closed cooperation from Tencent, Liu Yong, expected users to surge rapidly, from the current level of 5 million visitors per day to tens of millions per day.
Apart from the Tencent partnership, Rekoo is also going to introduce its best games to China and it has launched a new game called, Sunshine Town. “The existing problems of social games in China is that, although there are many players, very few are paying,” said Liu Yong. He believes better and more complex games is the solution for more people willing to pay. Sunshine Town is such a game. It allows you to build a virtual town. “There are many things you can do in Sunshine Town, not just simple repeating tasks, like those in the farm games. There are many more type of interaction with your friends, too. Not only stealing vegetables.”