Tag: china mobile gaming

Chinese mobile game app published private user videos online.

It should come as no surprise that mobile gaming apps are popular in China, but one Chinese mobile app in particular called “FengKuang LaiWang” has recently received a lot of media attention after it was discovered that the mobile game leaked more than 35,000 user videos online, including video clips of users who were in their underwear or in the nude.

The videos were posted without player’s consent on Youku.

FengKuang LaiWang essentially translates to “Crazy Dealings”, and is a popular charade-style game available for download via Alibaba’s Laiwang chat service. The game is not unlike the mobile game “Heads Up!” that can be downloaded from Apple’s App Store. Basically, in this game, players take turns trying to guess the word that appears on the screen while other players act it out. Players video themselves acting out a charade and share the video privately with friends.

According to “Beijing News”, thousands of these videos wound up on the game’s Youku account, which is a Chinese video platform similar to YouTube, unbeknownst to the players. Some of the videos revealed players, who took the game to another level, wearing very little or nothing at all. Many players did not realize that their videos were being recorded and published to Youku.

Concerns regarding mobile gaming regulation resulted after the incident.

As soon as the privacy blunder was reported by local media, the video-sharing feature of the game was disabled and the games account on China’s leading online video site was closed. Zhejiang Zhile Network, the game’s publisher, released a statement that said as soon as it realized the game was uploading video content without player consent it shut down the video-sharing function. The company apologized in a public statement saying that the game failed to inform users that their activities would be streamed online.

The company said that “Per this mistake, we, as the developer and operator of the game, apologize sincerely to affected users.” However, despite what happened, after news about the leak broke, downloads of FengKuang LaiWang have increased.

Nonetheless, as was noted by the “South China Morning Post”, the leak has resulted in people within the Chinese game industry questioning the safety and security of the mobile gaming regulations.

Developer raises $80 million in series C funding

Linekong, a developer of mobile games based in China, has announced that it has raised $80 million in series C funding. China is quickly becoming a prominent market when it comes to mobile app development, especially when these apps have to do with gaming in some way. Mobile apps are quite popular among consumers throughout the country and the demand for more engaging and entertaining applications has been on the rise for some time. The funding that Linekong has managed to acquire may help it compete with the multitude of developers that are already active in China.

Market continues to prove accommodating of mobile games

China’s mobile app development market is saturated. There are numerous organizations that are working to engage consumers with their applications and many of these groups are copying one another in an attempt to find success. It can be difficult for any one company to stand out amongst the crowded market, but Linekong has managed to attract a great deal of attention with its games. The funding that the developer has received will be used to further its growth in the gaming sector through the development of games that have already proven quite popular among consumers.

Linekong intends to release 15 new games this year

Linekong specializes in online role-playing and action games, two genres that are quite popular throughout China. Notably, Action RPGs are the most popular types of games among Chinese gamers, with 64% of consumers spending money on these types of games every month. Linekong intends to release 15 new mobile games this year, the majority of which will adhere to the developer’s genre preferences. Two of the games that the developer plans to release are to be classified as “leisure” games.

China establishes itself as prominent market for mobile games and gaming in general

China’s online games are expected to generate approximately $16 billion in revenue throughout 2014. This makes China one of the most attractive markets in the gaming world. The country is still relatively closed to foreign developers, but the Chinese government recently lifted a ban that had been imposed on foreign console platforms.