Honor of Kings becomes first mobile game to rake in $10 billion in revenue

Filling the coffers before the hammer comes down?

China’s video game scene might be in a helluva precarious place right now, but one publisher and franchise is certainly not hurting… at least not right now. Global giant Tencent’s smash hit Honor of Kings 🦋has officially become the first mobile-based game to rake in the equivalent of $10 billion USD in total play🌸er revenue, according to data from Sensor Tower.

The controversial (at least by governmental standards) MOBA launched in 2015, and over the past six years has raised an army of spend-happy users, rolling out characters, variants, items, and events to vacuum up the contents of player’s wallets. With a combination of compelling gameplay, impulsive mechanics, and more than a heavy dose of sexualization, Honor of Kings has 🔥raised both its own bank balance and the ire of⭕ Chinese parliament.

The smashed milestone comes at a time of great trepidation for China’s video game market. The past years have seen numerous new restrictions and regulations brought into law — with recent months and weeks seeing the heat really turned up on the country’s studios. Among the recent legislation includes new rules barring children from playing games on weekdays, photo-ID login systems, purposefully extended wait times for game ratings, and a slew of draconian content rules — including new restrictions on violent and “superstitious” content, as well as a lockdown on LGBTQ elements including “effeminate males”. The government also launched a whistleblower website to report games breaking the rules.

Honor of Kings, it can be argued, breaks all of the government’s rules on “contraband” content. As such, a clash between Tencent and China over Honor of Kings seems inevitable. The MOBA is a poster child for the sexualization and history-tweaking antics that gets Chinese parliament up in arms, while also being one of Tencent’s most reliable cash cows. Whatever the outcome, such a collision is likely to be one of the biggest and perhaps most industry-shaking in gaming history.

[GamesIndustry.biz]