Tencent Expands to UK With Establishment of Liverpool Studio

Tencent Games has set up a new studio in Liverpool, UK, led by Pete Smith, VP of partnerships for Tencent Games Global, Gamesindustry reported on Saturday. The studio has already been in operation for a period of time.

Ivan Davies has been hired as director, studio partnerships, and Jon Lawrence has been hired as development director, studio partnerships. At present, the studio has 12 members and plans to provide support for the development of titles from Tencent‘s partner studios.

Pete Smith said: “Given our continued expansion into the global market, we wanted a central location for our production staff to call home and to achieve regular on-site collaboration.” He added, “Liverpool is a vibrant city full of creativity and diversity and has been a hub of game development since the start of the gaming industry. We believe the production talent and industry experience available in the local area will accelerate our growth and capabilities.”

In recent years, Tencent has been setting up overseas studios, including in Boston, Los Angeles, and Seattle in the US, Montreal in Canada and Singapore.

Overseas markets have become a new growth point for Tencent Games. The rapid growth of these markets further diversifies its revenue structure.

SEE ALSO: Many Tencent-Owned Games Add Tencent Tianyou as Main Operator

On March 23, Tencent announced its 2021 Q4 and full-year financial reports. The documents indicate that its annual revenue in 2021 was 560.118 billion yuan ($84.02 billion), a year-on-year increase of 16%. The net profit attributed to the parent company owner was 224.822 billion yuan. Among them, the overseas game revenue was 45.5 billion yuan, up 31% year-on-year. In the fourth quarter, the game revenue in the international market reached 13.2 billion yuan, up 34% year-on-year, accounting for 30.8% of the company’s game business revenue.

With stricter supervision of China’s domestic game market, game companies are focusing their attention overseas. According to Newzoo, a game data analysis organization, the global game market will reach $218.7 billion in 2024, and the CAGR (compound annual growth rate) will be 7.55% from 2021 to 2024. In 2024, the number of players in the world will exceed 3.3 billion.