Elden Ring could become a gacha game signed by Tencent, which attempts to chase the success of HoYoverse and Genshin Impact.
Tencent, the titan of the Chinese gaming industry, is working on an Elden Ring gacha game for mobile devices, Reuters reports. Sources familiar with the matter who spoke to the news agency specifically mentioned that Tencent is looking for an answer to HoYoverse’s Genshin Impact, thus aiming for a free-to-play model with in-app purchases. While Tencent is still a much bigger player than HoYoverse, the Shanghai studio has happily cornered the lucrative Chinese gacha market with Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail.
Elden Ring mobile challenge Genshin Impact —
According to these experts, however, the progress of the project would be slow, also because Elden Ring does not exactly lend itself to this business model. From Software sold the Elden Ring license to Tencent in 2022, and in the same year the Chinese company bought a 16% stake in the Japanese studio. At the time, however, Tencent did not reveal that it would be working on a mobile game based on the IP. However, “a few dozen people” would be put to work on a prototype in 2022. Tencent recently canceled a mobile adaptation of the Nier franchise due to doubts about its monetization and, from what we see, the project with Elden Ring at the center reflects some of these same problems.
The moment of Chinese industry —
China’s gaming industry took a major stock market hit late last year after a regulator proposed several rules to limit monetization and engagement methods. Tencent and NetEase have publicly contested these proposals, the announcement of which cost them billions of dollars on the stock market. Ultimately, under pressure from these giants, the Chinese government stepped in, firing the man who oversaw the regulator and quietly abandoning the proposed restrictions.
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