Hong Kong is the key to targeting China with your mobile game

Mobile analytics company Metaps continues to investigate the best ways to break into the mobile game markets in the East, this time suggesting that Hong Kong could be your best entry point for capturing a wider Chinese audience. Previously, the company said that a great way to break your mobile game into Japan was via Taiwan -- a state that shares patterns in terms of best-selling game genres, and could potentially be used to test the waters. Now metaps has found that Hong Kong shares similarities with Taiwan when it comes to mobile games, with RPGs and strategy games both the most popular types of games in either region. And it helps, of course, that Hong Kong and Taiwan share Traditional Chinese as their common language. Couple this with the fact that Hong Kong has a population of 7 million people, and it would appear that tackling both Taiwan and Hong Kong together would be a decent strategy for any mobile developer looking to embed their games in the East. Another reason why Hong Kong is a good starting point when looking to break the rest of China: Hong Kong has the Google Play store, while mainland China doesn't, thus making it more familiar territory for Western developers to navigate initially. "Google Play does not exist in mainland China, so Android developers in China have an inherent need to take their apps to other regions," says Metaps. "Hong Kong is one of the first options for developers in Greater China, and many are currently thriving."