Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Mattel, NetEase In Mobile Games Joint Venture

El Segundo-based Mattel, and Chinese Internet technology and video game developer NetEase, said this morning that the two are in a new joint venture to public mobile games and education apps. According to the two, they will create a new mobile game publishing and development studio called Mattel163, which will specifically bring new mobile games and education apps to market, inspired by Mattel's large collection of brands. Financial arrangements of the joint venture were not announced. The companies said the first game to come out of the JV will be based on Mattel's UNO card game brand, with other titles based on Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fischer-Price, Thomas & Friends, and others appearing later. Mattel163 is apparently an homage to NetEase's original URL, www.163.com, which had referred to the phone code required of Chinese internet users to gain access to the Internet in the early days (163).

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