Tencent Licenses CryEngine3, Sets to Work on New Online Gaming Title

China’s social media giant Tencent (HKG:0700), which is also the market leader in online gaming in the country, has licensed Crytek’s CryEngine3 for its next multiplayer online game. The game is thought to be at only the embryonic stage and won’t see a release this year.

The gaming business site Gamasutra reports that this is the eighth such Chinese web company to license the powerful gaming engine, including previous iterations. One other licensee is Changyou (NASDAQ:CYOU), which is a close rival of Tencent in the serious gaming sector.

Tencent is already working with CryTek and is the official distributor in China of the flagship Warface (pictured above) title, a military shooter game which uses CryEngine3 for its impressive visual effects and graphics. Here the game is called ‘warfront‘ and is run from wf.qq.com.

We recently saw stats emerge that showed the entire gaming market in China was worth US$7.1 billion in 2011, with MMO platforms seeing 30.2 percent growth from the previous year.

[Source: Gamasutra]