Assassin's Creed Valhalla (Image: Ubisoft)
Tencent’s subsidiary, Level Infinite, is responsible for the development of Assassin’s Creed Jade in partnership with Ubisoft. However, in what Tencent is calling a strategy shift, the mobile-only game has been delayed until 2025. The new plan is to move away from Western franchise mobile video games because they believe that the profit margins are thin.
If you take a look at reviews from past Assassin’s Creed games, it makes sense that they’d see it as a risk. Players often have mixed reviews of the games. Some past profit strategies led to unpopular delivery modes and packages.
Today, even their most popular high-grossing games have taken a hit. One thing Tencent knows is that they have to do better. IP setbacks forced the company to be more selective.
Chief Strategy Officer James Mitchell said, “We’re focusing on fewer bigger budget games. Typically, we’re seeking to make the biggest bets around games that either iterate on a successful IP … or games that are iterating around proven gameplay success within a niche and taking those to a more mass market.”
Tencent has rededicated most of Level Infinite to working on other upcoming games such as Dreamstar.
However, to say that Western franchise mobile games have a small profit margin is to ignore the facts. Indeed, Tencent’s Western mobile games have not done so well.
However, if you open the Play Store and take a look at the “top grossing” and “top paid” categories for games, you’ll notice that many are Western franchises. Notably, there is Candy Crush which has consistently had high profits for years. There’s nothing wrong with catering to your audience, but let’s be clear. It’s Tencent’s western franchise mobile games that don’t do well but they likely could if Tencent wanted to make them a priority.
About Author
