Two months have passed since Tencent rebranded China’s version of PUBG Mobile as “Game for Peace,” and the mobile battle royale game has swiftly become the highest-grossing title in the genre, bringing in $860 million as of July, according to a report from analytics firm Sensor Tower.
Game for Peace has brought in a total of $241 million in player spending in the last 60 days, accounting for more than one-quarter of total revenue since it launched in February 2018. The figures do not include spending from third-party Chinese Android stores. In the US market, “PUBG Mobile” also posted a 565% year-over-year surge in revenue last month to $32 million.
This is especially impressive considering the competition. Epic Games’ Fortnite and NetEase’s Knives Out have grossed $725 million and $771 million since launch, respectively. The strong performance has helped Tencent become the top-grossing publisher as of July, raking in more than $679 million from in-app purchases, 39% higher year-on-year.
Tencent had been unable to monetize “PUBG Mobile” in China for more than a year due to a freeze on approvals from China’s game regulator, the State Administration of Press and Publication (SAPP). To this end, the company relaunched the game as “Game for Peace” in May, preserving the core gameplay but adding a more patriotic flavor. It then grossed more than $14 million in its first 72 hours on Apple’s China App Store.
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