"The development team pitched Pascal's Wager to most of the publishers in China, but nobody thought a premium single-player mobile game had any future. "When we saw Pascal's Wager in late 2017, we were pretty impressed by the quality," he says. Wang says that while the premium mobile model has historically struggled against the dominant free-to-play model in China, Giant Network saw potential in what TipsWorks had to offer, and acquired the studio in early 2018 to support it in finishing the game. Developed by Chinese studio TipsWorks, the game's iOS release and promotion overseas effectively represents two different gambles being made by its publisher: one on the potential for Chinese-developed games overseas, and another on the potential for premium mobile titles worldwide. Pascal's Wager is a particularly good example of Giant Games' business strategy. Giant Network has been looking into Western markets since 2017." "For most Chinese publishers and developers, it's very hard to launch new titles in the local market," he says. Why start a Western business after all these years? Wang says it's in large part due to increased Chinese government restrictions on game approvals in recent years. Its focus for now is on global launches of games made by Giant Network's existing Chinese partners, including Night of the Full Moon, Undying, and an upcoming premium mobile title called Pascal's Wager. While the parent company has been around since 2004 and has about 2000 employees, Giant Games is a much smaller endeavor of around ten people based in the Bay Area. Wang isn't with Perfect World anymore, having accepted a new role just over a year ago as head of Shanghai-based Giant Network's new US business: Giant Games. But today, Tencent here, NetEase here, Epic, all actively investing in developers and acquiring content. Back then, there was not much competition. With a strong cashflow, were able to acquire and invest in more developers in the US. So by launching our high-quality, free-to-play game Perfect World internationally, we were able to crack the market and grow from there. "Free-to-play was new to many Western developers. "Back then, there wasn't as much competition in the market," he says. At the time, he says, it was easy to launch a free-to-play game in the West. 11 years ago, Bill Wang was working with Perfect World to bring its MMO of the same name to international audiences.
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