Harry Potter: Magic Awakened Emerges as Biggest Launch of the Year in China
Harry Potter: Magic Awakened recorded the best debut of the year in China. The game should soon become the most profitable mobile game based on this license.
- Developer: NetEase
- Publisher: NetEase
- Genre: RPG with card game elements,
- Platforms: iOS, AND, PC
- China release date: September 9, 2021,
- Global release date: 2022
We recently wrote about the planned shutdown of Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. The creators of this project cannot blame their failure on the brand, as another mobile production using it has just recorded an exceptionally good launch. Developed by NetEase, Harry Potter: Magic Awakened has become the biggest launch of the year in China. In less than two months since its release, the project has earned over 228 million dollars.
In comparison, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite brought only 39.4 million dollars across two years of presence on the market. The leader in profiting from the brand remains Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery with $342 million in revenue, but it took it 3.5 years to work for that amount.
Harry Potter: Magic Awakened launched on September 9, this year, on PC and iOS and Android mobile devices. The game uses a free-to-play model with microtransactions and for now is only available in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. The release in the West is scheduled for next year.
There are many reasons for the game's success. The Harry Potter brand is very popular in China, and Harry Potter: Magic Awakened collects good reviews. The fairytale-like visual style, interesting gameplay with an extensive combat system and well-developed community options are all praised. However, it is not a perfect title. Especially the aggressive microtransction system is criticized.
According to analysts, the key role in the game's success was played by the excellent marketing campaign. Two days before the launch, selected players could try out a fragment of the game, and the invitations were stylized as letters containing the decision on admission to Hogwarts. After creating a character, the Sorting Hat, which is known to fans of the brand, decided which house the character would be assigned to. Players began to share recordings of both of these events en masse, and by the time of the game debuted, related videos had been viewed over a billion times on Weibo.
