Honor of Kings and Arena of Valor successfully ported the fun 5v5 MOBA gameplay to smartphones and significantly reduced the barriers to entry.
MOBAs are one of the most difficult and complex game genres with a high learning curve that was exclusively only played on a PC with mouse and keyboard controls.
Who wants a “watered-down” version of a PC game?: when HoK first launched as a 3v3 game, it was rejected, failing to gain traction - people made fun of the game’s joystick touch controls, lower quality graphics, and how not many “real gamers” would want to play a “watered-down” version on a tiny smartphone screen.In China back in 2015, HoK faced similar criticism the West is experiencing now regarding mobile gaming and girl gamers:
And China’s younger generation showed less and less interest in repetitive and over-the-top TV galas as families increasingly choose hóngbāo (red envelopes) and mobile games.īy the end of 2017, it amassed 200M MAUs where one out of seven Chinese person played it.
HoK clogged social media feeds and brought people together during the holidays. Source: ArtStationīy 2017, media reported Honor of Kings hit 80M DAUs during February 2017 Chinese New Year and it went on to became the world’s top grossing game that year. Honor of Kings Valentine’s hero art during Chinese New Year. A National Phenomenon is Bornįrom December 2016 to May 2017, HoK saw its DAUs and MAUs double in less than half a year to 54M DAUs and 163M MAUs. HoK has now become one of the world’s most profitable game, achieving 100M DAUs in 2020, which supposedly means that the daily active players of HoK is more than the total active player base of League of Legends (Riot reported a peak active player base of 100M MAUs back in 2016). Things got better when it re-launched as a 5v5 MOBA game when smartphone hardware kept getting faster with larger screen sizes. Which proved to be accurate with HoK’s 3v3 early failure since smartphone hardware at the time was not able to smoothly run a 5v5 multiplayer experience. At the time, people were apprehensive a version of “League” for smartphones would be a good enough experience on mobile. Tencent saw the potential of multiplayer smartphone gaming early and reportedly asked Riot (which it owns) to consider making a League of Legends for mobile. Here’s an example art of one of our heroes in the game.It can attract significantly younger and higher numbers of female players who have never played MOBAs before.The TAM (total addressable market) is 2+ billion users.This game can be played anywhere with your friends - all you need to have is your smartphone.This game has a much easier learning curve that combines MOBA core gameplay and a casual pick up nature - the game can be downloaded in a few minutes, launch in seconds, and you’ll be able to find a match in less than 30 seconds.I’m building a multiplayer game that would be a simpler version of the world’s most popular PC MOBA game - it’ll be action packed 10–15 min 5v5 game sessions vs 30–45+ minutes on PC.Here’s what a pitch for HoK may have looked like in 2014: Let’s take a look at the history of HoK and go back to 2014, during a time when the MOBA genre was dominated by PC games such as League of Legends to get a better understanding of how HoK became a blockbuster hit. However, can it replicate the success of Honor of Kings? I certainly hope so, because if it does, Wild Rift will significantly grow the Western gaming and esports market. Wild Rift seeks to bring the amazing League of Legends MOBA gameplay to the smartphone. League of Legends: Wild Rift gameplay screenshot.