Tag: china

Baidu seeks mobile games talent from Canada

| July 16, 2014

Baidu aims to take advantage of foreign talent in order to excel in the mobile gaming market

Mobile gaming is becoming more popular in China and companies that have helped the growth of these games, such as Baidu, are beginning to seek expansion beyond the country’s borders. Baidu is China’s largest search engine company and has played a pivotal role in the expansion of the mobile games sector. The company operates a mobile gaming platform that accounts for some 100 million application downloads each day. Baidu recently visited Canada in order to spark relationships with talented game developers.

Company meets with developers from Vancouver and Toronto

Representatives of Baidu Mobile Games met with more than 20 game developers in Vancouver and developers from Toronto. Both Vancouver and Toronto are considered “hot spots” when it comes to animation talent and mobile game development and, as such, Baidu has been making an effort to connect with this talent in the hopes of making new mobile games more available in China. Competition in China’s mobile gaming space is beginning to grow at a rapid pace and more companies are looking for foreign talent to give them the edge in the booming market.

China is an attractive market for ambitious game developers

Mobile Games - CanadaChina is a very attractive market for the game industry as a whole. An estimated 300 million people play mobile games every day. These people are willing to pay for the games they play, if these games are able to hold their attention and are not too big in terms of data. Many foreign development studios have been trying to break into the Chinese market, but doing so has been quite difficult. Having the backing of a company like Baidu can make this process much simpler and give developers access to a huge demographic that is hungry for mobile gaming.

Baidu has yet to announce partnerships with Canadian developers

Things move quite quickly in the mobile gaming world, so the developers that Baidu has met with may already be creating games for the Chinese company. These games may be released in a matter of months, but Baidu has not yet made any official announcement concerning any partnership it has made with Canadian game developers.

Tencent turns mobile commerce into a game

| July 8, 2014

Gamification of mobile payments is a hit with consumers

Tencent, one of China’s largest Internet organizations, has been finding a great deal of success in the mobile commerce field, and this may be due to the company’s approach on the mobile space. Mobile payments have been growing in popularity, but there is little incentive for consumers to stick with one mobile service in particular over another. Tencent’s WeChat platform is one of the most widely used mobile applications in the world, but it has only very recently begun to support mobile payments. In a relatively short amount of time, the platform has managed to win consumer loyalty through its unique approach to mobile commerce.

Tencent help digitize a longstanding tradition in China

Tencent has successfully “gamified” mobile payments, making it more appealing to consumers in general. In February, Tencent introduced a new way for people to celebrate one of the oldest traditions of the Chinese New Year: The exchange of hongbao, small, red envelopes that contain money. Every years, people throughout China exchange hongbao, but technology is beginning to play a role in the evolution of this longstanding tradition. Tencent introduced a new feature for its WeChat platform that effectively digitized hongbao.

Initiative encourages people to spend more through the WeChat platform

Tencent - Mobile CommerceThe service allowed people to send and receive digital hongbao, but the service also introduced some competition to the tradition. Using WeChat, people had the ability to make a red envelope containing money available to 20 people. The first ten people to claim the envelope would get a share of this money, creating an incentive for more people to use the WeChat platform. This competition actually encouraged people to spend more money through the platform.

Gamification of mobile commerce could make Tencent a leader in the mobile field

Gamification is nothing new in the mobile field. Many successful mobile applications have managed to attract support from consumers because they were able to turn everyday activities into an enjoyable game. Tencent’s ability to turn mobile commerce into a game could make it one of the leaders of the mobile field, especially if people continue to respond well to the company’s efforts.