A Conference Note From Phil Leggiere

An executive from a local ad agency that is helping game developers promote overseas, noted that the total addressable market of global game users is five times larger than China's domestic market, offering a new growth opportunity for Chinese game developers. “While the domestic market is dominated by Tencent [Holdings Ltd.], NetEase [Inc.] and ecommerce platforms like Alibaba [Group Holding Ltd.] and JD.com [Inc.], smaller companies can look for their opportunities overseas,” he said.

During his presentation, Henry Lim, account manager of Greater China online gaming for Facebook Inc., agreed that Chinese game developers are well-positioned for global growth. “The level of Chinese online gaming developers and product quality are already in the first tier globally,” he said. “Three years ago, in our top 100 revenue billboards, one or two games were from the Chinese developers. Now, one-third or a quarter of the top 100 games are Chinese.” Lim expects Facebook's Instagram and Messenger to open more advertising inventory to online gaming advertisers in 2018. “Chinese game advertisers can try more eye-catching short videos, not necessarily well shot or professionally edited, just something eye-catching,” he said. “I think even the style of Chinese live-streaming hosts is getting more accepted by the overseas audiences,” he said.

Another conference attendee from a mobile game agency helping local Chinese advertisers promote overseas, said they liked to spend on Facebook but as Facebook pricing is rising steeply, their spending on Snap Inc.'s Snapchat is also increasing.

In another public presentation, Wang Weiyan, COO of MENA Mobile, a developer focused on the Middle East and North Africa markets, said their commitments to spending on Facebook and Alphabet Inc.'s Google would increase in 2018. “Most of our spending is allocated to Google; after all, we see 70% of our users are from search, and search still provides the accurate result,” he said.