Three Decisions Over 15 Years Helped This Shanghai-Based Gaming Company Take Off

“All rivers flow eastward, day and night without ceasing; young trees, though newly sprouted, are already reaching for the sky.”

Most players may not have realized that many of the game companies that accompanied us as we grew up have long since shed their former image. After decades of transformation in the domestic gaming market, these companies have continuously evolved with the times and have all entered a new phase of development.

4399, which first gained popularity as a platform for casual games, has now made a spectacular transformation into a developer and publisher behind global hits like *Legend of the Mushroom Warriors*; TuYou, which started out with board and card games, has also successfully expanded into a broader gaming market with titles such as *Sub-God: Awakening of Light* and *Three Kingdoms: Ice Age*.

Amid this wave of transformation, another company that deserves mention is BoKe City. Once known primarily for its card and board games and fishing games, the company has not only launched numerous hit titles in the booming domestic mini-games market but has also created massively popular products in overseas markets such as Indonesia, achieving a comprehensive upgrade of its business portfolio.

01

Keeping up with the latest trends, hit mini-games keep coming

Over the past few years of explosive growth, mini-games—which have surged against the trend—have become the "hot commodity" in the eyes of game developers. Whether they are major studios or small teams, everyone wants to get in on the action. Pokecity, which has long specialized in the casual gaming sector, not only seized this opportunity with keen insight but also quickly achieved notable results.

Boke City entered the mini-game market in 2022 and, in just two years, has become a regular fixture in the top 20 of WeChat’s best-seller charts and the top 10 of Douyin’s best-seller charts, thanks to its two long-standing hits, *Jumping Kid* and *Spirit Painter*.

Both games share the same roots, drawing inspiration from *Crazy Knights*, which became a massive hit after its 2022 launch—a concept later commonly referred to in the industry as “loot box-style.”Of course, this is not a direct copy. Released earlier, *Leaping Boy* builds upon the “loot box” mechanics by introducing additional progression systems such as Soul Cards, Battle Spirits, and Heroes, significantly enhancing the game’s long-term progression depth. It also combines popular gameplay elements like card battles, roguelike mechanics, auto-battler tower defense, and idle synthesis, while offering corresponding PvP modes tailored to each progression system.With its clean art style and UI, gameplay offering vast exploration potential, and a mature monetization system, this game became one of the first successful "loot box-like" titles.

"The Dancing Kid"

But that’s not the whole story. As the game continued to evolve, it introduced new gameplay elements—such as SLG mechanics—through periodic events like “Island Conquest.” At the same time, it used various limited-time events to keep players engaged, ultimately retaining its user base and firmly securing its spot at the top of the best-seller charts.

If the success of *Leaping Boy* can be attributed in part to its early release, then the impressive performance of *Spirit Painter*, which didn’t debut until 2024, serves as a stronger testament to the team’s true capabilities.By 2024, the "loot box-style" frenzy had begun to wind down, with the market dominated by super-hit titles like *Quest for the Great Thousand*—which generated over 1 billion yuan in quarterly revenue (Source: Shanghai Shenyin Wanguo Securities Research Institute). Just as the industry was lamenting that "no one dares to make loot box games anymore," *Spirit Painter* burst onto the bestseller charts, catching everyone off guard.

While it also features "loot box-style" mechanics, *Spirit Painter* boasts a much more distinctive style and character compared to its predecessor from the same developer. Not only does it incorporate the cultivation genre and traditional Chinese-style cartoon art—both of which are popular among Chinese players—into its visuals,but also visually distinguishes itself from other games in the genre. Furthermore, it seamlessly integrates “open-world exploration and combo-based combat” into its core “loot box” mechanics and deep progression system, further enhancing player engagement and immersion. As a result, *Spirit Painter* has successfully stood out from the crowd of homogenized games.

"The Spirit Painter"

In addition to meticulously polished game content, the publishing team took an unconventional approach by partnering with the then-popular "Chinese Legends" anime IP. The promotional impact of this collaboration, which featured a visually complementary art style, was substantial. According to reports from other media outlets, the return on this collaboration was as much as four times the IP licensing fee—far exceeding the industry average.

Thanks to effective cross-promotion and compelling game content, *Spirit Painter* has successfully broken through the competition and maintained its popularity. Since the start of 2025, the game has consistently ranked in the top 10 of WeChat’s best-selling charts and even topped Douyin’s best-selling charts for a time. During a recent update this year, it achieved the remarkable feat of generating over tens of millions in daily revenue.Through meticulous refinement and targeted marketing, *Spirit Painter* has established itself as a leader among games in its genre.

Launching two blockbuster hits that have consistently ranked at the top of the sales charts within three years is already an impressive achievement for most teams, but BoKe City clearly has no intention of stopping there. So far this year, they have consecutively propelled two games—*Racing Frenzy* and *Super Egg-Laying Duck*—into the top 30 of the sales charts.

The art styles and content of these two new games differ significantly from the first two installments, but both incorporate a variety of popular market elements.For instance, tower defense, hack-and-slash, and roguelike elements are tried-and-true "magic bullets" for attracting players in the industry. *Racing Frenzy* blends all these elements together, wraps them in a post-apocalyptic wasteland aesthetic, and creates this addictive game. With engaging main story levels, rich side content, and a well-developed monetization model, it comes as no surprise that this game quickly climbed the charts.

"Racing Down the Road"

"Super Egg-Laying Duck" builds upon the versatile tower defense and card-collecting mechanics, adding marbles—a feature not yet dominating the charts—as its standout highlight. Thoughtfully designed trajectories, combined with "chain-reaction ricochets" and "combo screen-clearing" mechanics, paired with exaggerated ricochet effects and sound design, instantly deliver an exhilarating experience.Furthermore, the game’s adorable duck heroes quickly capture players’ attention, while the rich variety of skill combinations ensures strategic depth in team composition. After numerous optimizations and adjustments, the game has successfully risen to the top ranks of the marble-shooting mini-game genre.

"The Super Egg-Laying Duck"

With two long-standing hit titles anchoring its portfolio and several new games making a strong debut, BoKe City has firmly established itself in the mini-games market through in-depth research and a multi-pronged strategy.

02

Expanding Globally with a Strong Presence, Reaching 500 Million Users Worldwide

In addition to consistently achieving impressive results in the mini-games sector, Pokecity’s performance in overseas markets is equally noteworthy.

Boke City’s international expansion plan took shape quite early on. As far back as 2016, the company’s leadership demonstrated remarkable foresight in recognizing that, no matter how large the domestic mobile gaming market might be, it could not expand indefinitely; mobile game developers would ultimately have to go global. Consequently, they officially embarked on their international expansion journey that year.Given the company’s lack of overseas market experience and resources in its early stages, they did not rush into action. Instead, after conducting in-depth research, they selected a “fishing” game—the most promising title from their existing portfolio—and targeted Southeast Asia, where this genre already held a significant market share, to launch their first overseas initiative.

Through this initial foray into the international market, the Pokecity team gained a clear understanding of the strategies required for global expansion and quickly accumulated practical experience, laying the groundwork for the successful launch and explosive growth of multiple subsequent products overseas.

In 2018, BoKe City leveraged its years of experience in the card and board game market to develop *Higgs Domino Island*, a game tailored specifically for the Indonesian market with strong local cultural elements.This game combines dozens of popular card and board game modes, including Dominoes, Texas Hold’em, Remi (similar to Indian Rummy), QiuQiu (similar to Pai Gow), and Slots. The Slots mode, in particular, has been extremely popular among local users, with concurrent online players at one point reaching 85% of the platform’s total user base.

《Higgs Domino Island》

With its rich gameplay and polished production quality, coupled with various monetization models—such as selling in-game chips and offering VIP subscriptions that unlock chat features—the game shot straight into the top 5 on both Indonesia’s mobile game download and revenue charts upon launch. Throughout its subsequent operation, the game’s popularity continued to soar, consistently ranking among the top three on Indonesia’s mobile game sales charts and holding the number one spot on the card and board game charts.

By 2022, the daily active user base for *Higgs Domino Island* alone had surged more than fivefold from 2 million in 2020, reaching 10 million. Thanks to the game’s outstanding performance, Poke City’s revenue in July 2022 was 3.75 times that of the same period in 2020 (Source: SensorTower).By 2023, the game had become a nationwide phenomenon, ranking among the top three in daily active users, trailing only *MLBB* and *Free Fire* (Source: Data.ai).

Despite the phenomenal success of *Higgs Domino Island*, it did not trigger a broader chain reaction. Over the following years, the various card and board game products that Poke City launched in other regions—including *Tongits Star* in the Philippines, *Domino Cafe* in the Arab world, *Dummy Land* in Thailand, and *Online Durak* in Russia—failed to replicate the success of their star predecessor.

However, BoKe City’s global expansion isn’t limited to card and board games; its overseas portfolio now spans a wider range of popular genres and markets. For example, the company has launched several games based on stacking and matching mechanics, including *Tile Master*, *Cube Master 3D*, and *Balloon Master 3D*. Among these, *Tile Master* has performed the best, with downloads exceeding 100 million;To cater to female players overseas who enjoy romance-themed mobile games, they have released *Romance Fate* and *Stories: Love and Choices*; regarding the merge-and-restyle genre, which shows immense monetization potential, Pokecity has also made strategic moves, testing multiple products before finally launching *Merge Restyle* in 2023.Furthermore, regarding mini-games that have been popular among players both domestically and internationally over the past two years—such as color sorting, item organization, match-three puzzles, and Sudoku—Poke City has made every effort to cover these genres in the overseas market.

Selected Overseas Products from BoKe City

The company’s vast and diverse product portfolio has driven steady growth in its overseas operations. In 2020, BoKe City announced that its overseas DAU had surpassed the 10 million mark; by 2022, its business had expanded to more than 200 countries and regions worldwide, with over 500 million registered users and 60 million monthly active users, of whom more than 70% were overseas users.

In November 2023, the Southwest Headquarters of BoKe City—which primarily oversees overseas and global market operations—officially opened in Chengdu High-Tech Zone. Around the same time, BoKe City was also awarded official honors such as the title of “Key National Cultural Export Enterprise for 2023–2024.” To date, BoKe City’s overseas operations have achieved significant success.

03

Keeping Pace with the Times: A Remarkable Transformation Over Fifteen Years

Let’s rewind to 2002, when Xu Renbin, founder of BoKe City, arrived in Shanghai. Having just entered the gaming industry and tasked with distributing overseas games, he was determined to “create an online game for the Chinese people.”Perhaps he never imagined back then that, more than two decades later, the company he founded would not only have multiple titles consistently topping domestic sales charts, but would also have an overseas presence reaching hundreds of millions of users, with players worldwide enjoying their games. When it comes to the root cause of this success, I believe the key lies in keeping pace with the times and riding the wave of progress.

Xu Renbin, Founder of BoKe City

From the very beginning of his entrepreneurial journey, Xu Renbin forged a connection with card and board games. In 2004, when he first started his business, he realized that his team lacked extensive professional development experience. Consequently, he chose to develop “Dou Dizhu”—a casual card game that piqued his interest and enjoyed a massive domestic following—and entrusted its operation to a third-party agency.

However, operating the first game was no easy task. Due to the team members’ lack of technical expertise in the early days and the game’s limited server capacity, the system would inevitably crash whenever there were too many players online.In a later interview, Xu Renbin revealed that the game would crash as soon as the number of online players reached 3,000, so they dreaded weekends and holidays. After several years of arduous operation, once they had accumulated sufficient funds, Xu Renbin decisively decided to take control of the entire industry chain—including R&D, operations, and marketing. Thus, in 2010, they finally established their own brand: BoKe City.

After establishing the company, they continued to consolidate their lead in the card and board games and fishing game sectors. The number of concurrent online players for their games quickly surpassed the 30,000 mark, with their flagship PC title, *Fishing Master*, alone amassing over 10 million registered users.During the browser game era, the prevailing view was that building a platform was the way forward. Consequently, in 2011, BoKe City followed industry trends by launching 53wan, which quickly attracted over 30 million registered users. Since its inception, BoKe City’s growth has been nothing short of smooth sailing.

But the wheels of time roll on relentlessly, and change often happens overnight. In 2013, the smartphone revolution swept in, bringing about a seismic shift in the gaming market. The once-dominant browser-based game market began to wane, and a transformation became imperative.To avoid being left behind by the times, Xu Renbin made a decisive decision to split the team’s resources in a 30-70 ratio: 30% of the team remained to ensure the smooth operation of existing business; the remaining 70% of the core team was divided into four task forces, committed to a “do-or-die” effort to transition to mobile gaming. Given that the future of mobile gaming was still uncertain at the time, this was undoubtedly a bold and daring move.

Fortunately, this decision did not disappoint him. After two years of exploration and development, BoKe City successively launched several mobile game titles, including the mobile version of *BoKe Dou Dizhu*, the Android online game *Xianmo Jiujie OL*, the Android version of *Star Dou Dizhu*, and the 3D pet game *Pocket Fantasy Beasts OL*.By 2015, all projects had turned a profit, and several "hidden hits" generating over 10 million yuan in revenue had emerged. Revenue from the mobile business skyrocketed, quickly surpassing that of the PC business and driving the company’s total revenue to grow tenfold.

After establishing a firm foothold in the mobile gaming market, BoKe City continued to explore new genres, launching popular titles such as *Stir-Fry Jianghu* and *Cat Apartment*, thereby further solidifying its position in the domestic market.

Following this transformation, Xu Renbin remained vigilant even in times of stability. Anticipating the next wave of industry change, he proactively sought transformation and actively explored new avenues for growth: In 2016, he led the company in officially launching its globalization initiative and expanding into overseas markets; in 2022, he accurately identified industry trends and capitalized on the momentum to enter the casual games sector, successfully expanding the company’s business scope even further.

Since its founding in 2010, BoKe City has completed a three-stage transformation of its business operations over the past 15 years. Today, the company’s workforce has grown to approximately 1,500 employees, and its Shanghai headquarters—a 1.5 billion yuan project designed by renowned architect Tadao Ando—is scheduled to be officially completed this year.

Clearly, the story of BoKe City’s development is far from over.

Conclusion

Looking back on BoKe City’s 15-year journey, the company started with card and board games and fishing games in 2010, decisively pivoted to mobile games in 2013, launched its global expansion in 2016, and emerged as a leading player in the mini-games sector by 2022. Through every industry transformation, the company has consistently navigated the right course, demonstrating remarkable resilience and adaptability.

Today, BoKe City has evolved from a developer specializing solely in card and board games into a comprehensive gaming enterprise spanning multiple categories and reaching global markets. If the company continues to deepen its expertise in existing sectors while expanding into emerging fields, BoKe City may be able to transform this “vitality”—its ability to keep pace with the times—into a more robust competitive edge. This would enable the company to establish a lasting advantage in the fiercely competitive industry and make the leap from a “trendsetter” to an “industry leader.”

Teahouse also looks forward to seeing this company, which has always kept pace with the times, continue to achieve new breakthroughs and deliver surprises in the future.