You may or may not have heard of NetEase. If you haven’t, this is the company that managed to bring World of Warcraft and Hearthstone to China. They are a big company in other words and they are about to get even bigger as they have announced that they have opened their first headquarters in the West, being here in the US, and that their initial focus will actually be on mobile platforms.
David Ting will be leading the new US headquarters and he has plenty of experience already under his belt with past positions including Chief Technology Officer at OUYA, Head of Online Publishing at Blizzard, and General Manager of IGN eSports. It is actually pretty interesting that the initial focus of the Western NetEase headquarters will be on mobile platforms since their China offices have focused on both mobile and PC, with their big titles being those from Blizzard.
With a $15 billion USD market cap, NetEase has a strong foundation of successes in Asian markets made possible by a wealth of design and engineering talent. We’re diligently working to bring culturalized versions of these high quality experiences to gamers all over the world. We’ve assembled a group of talented professionals whose passion is making games and our focus is on fostering an environment with creative freedom. We are building the games we want to play and are excited to launch them into global markets. – David Ting, General Manager of NetEase North America
The company has already announced what their first release will be as well. Their first release on the Western market will be an adaptation of one of their more successful Chinese games. Right now this game has a working title of Speedy Ninja, which means that name could change before the game is released. With all the resources NetEase has, it is an odd decision to release this game, which is an endless runner but with a bit of a twist to it.
Speedy Ninja has a unique calligraphy art style and competitive game mechanics. There is a leaderboard that players can compete in by doing daily quests. Players can customize their character’s battle gear and “mystical summons” (we are thinking this is either pets or spells) which implies that there is plenty of action in this game as well. Speedy Ninja was developed by Pandada Studio which means NetEase will be retaining their publisher duties by not developing any games themselves.
Right now there is no specific release date for Speedy Ninja, only that it will be coming soon.
Developer Website: Pandada Studio
