Kabam to publish Chinese hit Wartune on mobile in the West

Kabam announced today that it will distribute the popular web game Wartune in North American and Europe on mobile devices.

The role-playing/strategy game fulfills a couple of strategic goals for Kabam. It helps expand the company’s third-party publishing efforts, so it can take advantage of its own mobile distribution network to make externally produced games more successful. This move is also connected to Kabam’s $50 million development fund for the Asian market. Kabam is using that money to invest in Asian developers to help them introduce their games in other parts of the world. Lastly, it’s a move to spread out to new kinds of popular content.

Wartune, where hundreds of players fight at once, is a good choice for Kabam to publish because it already generates $7 million in revenue per month from in-app purchases by gamers in English-speaking regions. The web title comes from China’s 7th Road, while the mobile version is a joint development venture from 7th Road and Hoolai Games. Hoolai has licensed its rights for iOS and Android to Kabam for North America and major European countries.

San Francisco-based Kabam is a leader in the free-to-play, hardcore social game business in the West. It is valued at $700 million, based on recent investments, and it is targeting to grow 2013 revenues more than 70 percent to $300 million, up from $180 million the year before.

“As an award-winning game developer of top grossing mobile games in China including, Hoolai Three Kingdoms and Checkmate, Hoolai Games prides itself on its mobile development expertise and resources,” said Jian Huang, the president of Hoolai Games. “We made sure that gamers would enjoy the mobile version of Wartune, so we went beyond expectations by properly adapting a globally popular game like Wartune for iOS and Android. Kabam has a reputable track record for publishing games in the West, so we’re thrilled to be working with Kabam.”

On mobile, Kabam also has published Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North, The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth, Blastron, Dragons of Atlantis: Heirs of the Dragon, and Fast & Furious 6: The Game.

“Kabam’s mobile license for Wartune is another indication of how Kabam is taking the lead in mobile core games,” said Amit Ranade, the president of Kabam Distribution. “Asian game developers have come to appreciate Kabam as a distribution partner they can trust to expose their titles to the huge markets outside of their home countries.”