We reported recently that Chinese investors have been making inroads into Korea. Now we are seeing the first signs of what fruits those investments are likely to bear. As reported by Business Korea, Korean gaming companies are beginning to target the Chinese mobile gaming market, in partnership with Tencent.

In a new trend for the Chinese internet giant, Tencent is now actively opening its doors to Korean companies interested in entering the Chinese market. It is believed that this strategy is aimed at boosting what is seen as ‘stagnant mobile game sales’ in China. It is hoped that a new range of titles from Korea will invigorate the market and bring back a return to impressive revenues.

Tencent’s initial dealings with Korean game developers began when Cross Fire (Smilegate) and Dungeon & Fighter were hugely popular in the Chinese market. After the success of messaging app WeChat (owned by Tencent), the company made a successful effort to link the chat company to a gaming platform.

Tencent's other messaging app QQ is also linked to a gaming platform. The company also operates app market, App Gem. It was initially expected that games on KakaoTalk's gaming platform would be released through WeChat's gaming platform, but this never materialized. Instead (and in a well-known trend by Chinese companies) Tencent copied a number of popular Korean games, including the hugely popular Wind Runner and Anipang. This of course attracted widespread scorn of the Chinese company within gaming circles in Korea. Perhaps the new alliance with Korean companies is a sign that tech relations between the two countries are improving. The stalled growth of the Chinese market is also likely a major factor though.

In other related news, Netmarble Games, 4:33 Creative Lab, and PATI Games have also received very sizeable investments from Tencent, to the extend that Tencent now has considerable control over their subsequent title releases. Gamevil's title, Dragon Blaze, also came under the ownership of Tencent, after the Chinese firm bought a controlling stake in Flint, the game’s developer.

Edited from original post on Business Korea

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