China’s Most Popular Mobile Game Charges Into American Market

Young women cosplay as the main characters of the mobile game Arena of Valor in Tianjin, China, in October. More than half the game’s players in China are female.

Zhang Peng / LightRocket via Getty Images

Chinese tech giant Tencent is trying to do something that’s never been done before: take the biggest online mobile game in China global.

Kings Of Glory, sometimes also translated as Honor Of Kings, boasts over 200 million monthly players worldwide. In China, it’s been reported that tens of millions play daily. The game is so popular that Tencent had to implement a daily time restriction for young players to “ensure children’s healthy development.”

Now Tencent is trying to duplicate that success with a revamped version of the game for Western audiences, named Arena Of Valor, released in Europe in August and in North and South America earlier this month. While download figures have not yet been released, the game was charting at No. 15 on Jan. 1 in the Role Playing Games category on the iTunes app store.