How one Chinese founder went from battling kidney disease to snagging Apple deal

When Yang Yang took the stage at the iPhone 11 event to show off his new game, few knew just how much he and his studio had gone through to get to this point.

Pascal’s Wager certainly justified its status as the first demo Apple used for the new iPhone. The game’s stunning visuals blew people away, showing detailed characters and a large world all running smoothly on a smartphone.

It was the culmination of a wild few years for TipsWorks and Yang, who may not have reached this point if his kidney didn’t fail.

TipsWorks founder Yang Yang shows off the advanced graphics and gameplay of Pascal’s Wager, made possible by A13 Bionic in iPhone 11. / Photo credit: Apple

Yang saved money for a kidney transplant. But when he and other former employees of Japanese gaming giant Konami decided to start TipsWorks, they poured their personal savings into the Shanghai-based studio – including the money Yang had saved for a new kidney.

Success didn’t come easily for the new studio. Yang was even tempted to abandon his venture for a job at a big company – except none seemed to be interested in him.

“Even though I had been in the industry for so long, because of my health condition at the time no company would dare take me,” Yang told Abacus in a phone call.

Yang, who was suffering from uremia at the time, wound up on dialysis three times a week for two years.

“There’s no way out, so you have to stick to it,” he said.

Part of the problem for TipsWorks was its insistence on ignoring the main trend in mobile games – free-to-play titles supported by in-app purchases. They’re often derided as “pay to win” games because of mechanics that slow down progress, unless players pay.

Yang said he wanted to make something that “wouldn’t let true gamers down.”

“Many mobile game companies in China, especially in the last few years, want to make small things aimed at instant success and quick profits,” Yang said. “We thought it wasn’t for us.”

Unsurprisingly, deliberately following a different path from the one that promised instant success and quick profits wasn’t a big draw to investors. It wasn’t until last year that TipsWorks was finally acquired.

“Many investors turned them down because of the limited financial upside from the premium business model,” said Bill Wang, vice president of Giant Network, which purchased TipsWorks in 2018.