Indie games are the latest trophies for tech giants in China’s multibillion-dollar gaming market

The competition between China’s tech giants from mobile payments to social media is spilling over to mobile games, where the fight is on to secure the most popular titles.

Monument Valley 2, the sequel to the popular puzzle-solving game by UK games developer ustwo, got half of its downloads from China after Tencent Holdings bought the rights to publish it last June.

Minecraft, considered by many as one of the world’s most successful independent games, had 60 million registered users after it launched in China last year, according to NetEase, which got the rights to release its title.

A successful debut of an indie game, typically developed by small, unaffiliated studios, would spark a bidding war to secure publishing rights. These games are mostly outside the conventional genres of first-person shooting (FPS) and multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA). Games require publishers in China because they are held accountable by the government, which monitors and controls the distribution of digital content in the country.

At stake is the world’s biggest gaming market, estimated by Newzoo to be worth US$27.5 billion in revenue last year. As with elsewhere, gaming has grown from a niche hobby in dimly lit internet cafes in China by hard core gamers to becoming a mainstream pastime by casual players whiling the time away on a commute.

The country is now considered a top market by games developers where titles can make huge profits, according to indie game portal Indienova, a sea change from the days when China was viewed as a market for bootlegged titles and free-to-play online games. In 2000, the government banned foreign game consoles like Sony PlayStation and Nintendo Wii, further stunting the development of gaming in the country. The restrictions were only lifted in 2015.