NetEase Games Acquires Canada-Primarily based Game Studio SkyBox Labs

NetEase, a number one Chinese web and recreation companies supplier, introduced on January 6 that its video games division had acquired SkyBox Labs, a Canada-based recreation studio.

Founded in 2011, SkyBox Labs has developed titles alongside a number of the world’s prime publishers together with Xbox Game Studios, Wizards of the Coast, and Electronic Arts. Over the final decade, it has labored on video games comparable to Halo Infinite, Minecraft, and Fallout 76.

SkyBox Labs will proceed to function independently inside NetEase Games and underneath the management of its three co-founders, Shyang Kong, Derek MacNeil and Steven Silvester, offering a full vary of recreation improvement companies to present and future companions.

NetEase will assist the studio with assets and execution capabilities in order that SkyBox Labs can obtain quicker scale whereas sustaining the standard of labor the studio is understood for. SkyBox Labs will proceed to develop, retain workers and rent new staff in Canada throughout all disciplines of recreation improvement, together with artwork, engineering, design, manufacturing, and QA.

Last August, NetEase Games acquired French recreation developer Quantic Dream, which turned its first studio in Europe. In 2022, NetEase Games opened recreation studios Nagoshi Studio in Japan and Jackalope Games within the United States, and invested in Bungie and Behavior Interactive. A couple of days after NetEase opened its US studio, Tencent introduced that it will open a studio in Liverpool, UK. miHoYo additionally opened a studio in Montreal final 12 months and introduced plans to create a brand new triple-A capturing recreation.

SEE ALSO: NetEase Explores Global Game Market by Setting up Studios and Investing

In a gathering after NetEase introduced its monetary report of Q1 2022, agency founder Ding Lei mentioned, “NetEase‘s overseas revenue accounts for more than 10% at present, and we hope the overseas market can account for 40% to 50% in the future.” Although Ding had mentioned the acceleration of the firm’s abroad recreation enterprise many occasions throughout earlier earnings convention, this was the primary time proposing such particular quantitative indicators.

In a convention name half a 12 months later, Ding proposed that NetEase Games ought to launch its self-developed video games, comparable to “Identity V” and “Knives Out” within the world market, and spend money on abroad recreation studios. However, in response to the abroad income record within the first half of final 12 months revealed by information.ai, NetEase solely ranked sixth, decrease than Tencent and miHoYo, and even ranked behind FunPlus, Lilith Games and 37 Interactive Entertainment.

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