Tencent-owned TiMi Studios made $10 billion in 2020: Report

TiMi Studios’ earnings is higher than Activision Blizzard, which reported $8.09 billion in 2020 revenues.

Tencent reported 156.1 billion yuan ($23.79 billion) in overall online game revenues for 2020. According to Reuters, Timi’s proceeds accounted for 40% of the game revenue. (AP)

TiMi Studios, the developer known for popular titles like Call of Duty Mobile and Honor of Kings, has reported $10 billion in overall online gaming in 2020, according to a recent Reuters report. The earnings make the Tencent-owned studio the world's largest developer.

The Verge in its report notes that TiMi Studios may have outshined Activision Blizzard, which publishes the Call of Duty games franchise. Activision had reported $8.09 billion in 2020 revenues.

The report further points out the successful release of Call of Duty Mobile. It was one of the biggest mobile games launches when it debuted in October 2019. The game bagged more than 100 million downloads in mere the first seven days of its availability. Similarly, Honor of Kings had 100 million daily active users as of November 2020. Interestingly, the game is exclusive to China.

TiMi Studios is now looking beyond mobile-focused titles and aiming to compete with gaming bigwigs such as Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, the report added. Recently, a TiMi Studios' engineer said in a post that the company was planning to develop a AAA game that'd be identical to the movie Ready Player One. The post further said that the game would take on “big powers from Japan, Korea, Europe, and the US.”

The global expansion plans include setting up studios outside China. Tencent is reportedly building a studio for TiMi and one for its Lightspeed and Quantum Studios in Los Angeles. The purpose is to build content with original IPs that would appeal to a global audience. The report further noted that many studios are now turning to Tencent to launch their desktop or console games into mobile.