Asmodee partners with Kingnet for the Chinese mobile games market and pursues its acceleration in digital games

Asmodee, a leading global games publisher and distributor, today announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with Kingnet, a preeminent Chinese mobile games development studio and internet content and services provider. Founded in 2008, Kingnet operates many popular games including Skyscraper, Shushan Legend and MU Miracle. Through this partnership, Kingnet will license select Asmodee content and develop and distribute original mobile games for the growing Chinese user base.

Stéphane Carville, CEO of the Asmodee Group, said “As Asmodee continues to expand in global markets, this new partnership with Kingnet is a fantastic opportunity for our group to engage Chinese consumers with our content and products. By combining our expertise in publishing with Kingnet’s proven success and extraordinary ability to engage with Chinese players, we are uniquely positioned to accelerate our growth in digital games.”

Wang Yue, CEO of Kingnet, said “Digital gaming is a fast-growing market in China and consumers are always looking for new gaming experiences. We believe that there is a lot of potential for strong boardgames to be adapted to a digital platform and are thrilled to partner with Asmodee, a recognized industry leader which has built an impressive games catalogue with a dedicated following worldwide.”

The Asmodee Group has been building its digital offering since 2015 with the creation of Asmodee Digital, capitalizing on the success of the digital version of Ticket to Ride (over 6 million downloads of the base game and its expansions since 2011). Asmodee has a catalogue of more than 30 digital boardgame apps, enabling the company to become the leading publisher in the premium boardgame apps category on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

In addition to other new titles in development, Asmodee Digital and Fantasy Flight Interactive, one of the Asmodee Group’s digital studios, recently announced the release of a digital, free-to-play version of its acclaimed The Lord of the Rings™ – Living Card Game™. The game will be available as pre-release for early access on Steam in the first half of 2018 and later on iOS and Android.

Asmodee’s digital experience goes beyond board game apps to include immersive storytelling through high quality role-playing games for PC and new gaming experiences with the virtual reality version of iconic tabletop game Catan for Oculus Rift and Gear VR developed through a partnership with VR games studio Experiment 7.

“It is our strong belief at Asmodee that we must offer Great Games and tell Amazing Stories on all platforms, physical and digital, and to the largest audience. Our objective is to build a first-class game app catalogue and invest in engaging projects to continue our growth, provide great game experiences and reach new players across the world,” added Stéphane Carville, CEO of the Asmodee Group.

About Asmodee
Asmodee Group is a leading international games publisher and distributor with operations located in Europe, North America and China. Asmodee’s best known titles, either published or distributed on behalf of key publishing partners, include Catan, Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, Dead of Winter, Splendor, Dobble/Spot it!, Star Wars: X-Wing, 7 Wonders, Dixit, Takenoko, Abyss, Timeline, Jungle Speed and The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow. In some European countries, Asmodee also distributes trading card games such as Pokémon and Magic. Asmodee has headquarters in Guyancourt, France. Learn more at corporate.asmodee.com.

About Asmodee Digital
Asmodee Digital, a fully owned subsidiary of the Asmodee Group, is an international publisher and distributor of digital games with operations located in Europe and North America. Asmodee Digital manages the creation, design, development, publishing and marketing of board and card games on leading digital platforms for Asmodee studios as well as for third-party publishers. The current Asmodee Digital catalogue includes best-selling digital games such as Ticket to Ride, Splendor, Pandemic, Small World 2, Mr. Jack London, Lexigo Rush, Story Cubes, Colt Express, Mysterium, Potion Explosion, Onirim, Jaipur, Spot It! Duel, Harald, Smash Up, Carcassonne and digital versions of many other well-known board games. Learn more at asmodee-digital.com.

About Kingnet
Kingnet (stock code: SHE:CN:002517) was founded in 2008. Headquartered in Shanghai, it is an Internet enterprise with mobile Internet traffic entrance, platform operation and product development. The company, with over one thousand people in the team, developed and operated many popular games like Skyscraper, Shushan Legend, MU Miracle and so on, as well as many industry’s leading Internet platform type products, such as XY a web game platform, XY Apple Assistant an application distribution platform, HI Maintenance a mobile phone maintenance service platform, Papa Game Hall a mobile gaming platform, etc. The company has achieved the transformation from PC to mobile and to the Internet multi-platform operators, and successfully created the Traffic Acquisition-Traffic Management-Traffic Monetization closed-loop Internet ecosystem.
At the beginning of 2016, Kingnet completed the listing of a-shares, and formulated the three strategies of, “platform + content + VR/AR.“ Learn more at kingnet.com.

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