Chinese mobile publisher Yodo1 is coming to America and other Western territories after establishing a strong business in Asia.
Today, Yodo1 announced its plans to expand into global publishing for iOS and Android. In September, Yodo1 will release a new title from developer BonusXP called Cavemania, which is a match-three puzzle game with strategic elements. Cavemania is free-to-play, and Yodo1 worked with BonusXP on the release from the beginning.
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Longtime gaming executive Jung Suh, who has worked with Electronic Arts and Activision, is overseeing Yodo1’s global publishing business. He had Yodo1 work hand in hand with BonusXP on the artwork, the game design, and the marketing. While many mobile publishers just show up for the distribution and the daily active users, Yodo1 is trying to separate itself from the crowd by showing its developers that it will invest in every game it releases. That’s a big part of what convinced BonusXP to work with Yodo1.
“BonusXP is full of dedicated, passionate people,” BonusXP head Dave Pottinger said. “The whole Yodo1 team won us over by loving Cavemania as much as we do. Henry and Jung share our ‘game comes first’ focus and made us feel like part of their family, which is all too rare in this business.”
Cavemania’s global release follows closely on the heels of Yodo1 passing 50 million active users in the Chinese market. The company’s mobile platform is only about a year old, but it’s already found a lot of success in that country.
“We’ve learned a lot about the China market to reach 50 million players in less than a year,” said Fong. “With a user growth rate of over 10 million new players per month, we’re eager to apply our knowledge and platform on a global level.”
Yodo1 is also about to launch its Kryptanium games-as-a-service software development kit in open beta. This SDK enables developers to add social features, rewards, notifications, and other features to their games.
With so many developers and publishers looking to get into Asian markets and China in particular, it’s a bit surprising that one of that country’s up-and-coming companies would look to other markets for growth, but Yodo1’s executives have a formula that they believe will work anywhere.