Tencent launches new blockchain game merging concepts behind Pokémon Go and CryptoKitties
- Let’s Hunt Monsters is currently the most downloaded free game in China’s iOS App Store
- Despite its global success, Pokémon Go is absent from China due to its ban on Google
The world’s biggest gaming market is finally getting a taste of Pokémon Go and CryptoKitties.
Not the original versions but a new title that merges concepts underlying the two games into one, produced by Chinese gaming giant Tencent.
The Shenzhen-based company on Thursday launched its long anticipated augmented reality (AR) game called Let’s Hunt Monsters, where users can cruise around streets and catch hundreds of virtual monsters, while rearing and trading millions of digital kittens stored on a blockchain. That essentially combines what Pokémon Go and CryptoKitties are known for.
Launched about three years ago, Pokémon Go is the most successful mobile title in the Pokémon franchise, with an estimated US$2.5 billion in total revenue, according to data from Sensor Tower. CryptoKitties, meanwhile, is the first viral blockchain game, which upon its release in late 2017 jammed up the ethereum network where it is based with players spending millions of US dollars trading cartoon kittens.
Both titles have had little or no exposure in China. Pokémon Go’s location-based gameplay is dependent on Google Maps, which is banned in the country. As for CryptoKitties, players essentially need to get ether – the world’s second biggest cryptocurrency after bitcoin – to trade those digital cats, and there is no easy way to do that in China after the government banned cryptocurrency exchanges in 2017.