Techland Acquired; We Explain What League Tencent is Playing in
Techland is just the tip of the iceberg. Tencent has been investing in the game industry for years and owns many well-known developers (and even publishers).
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Tencent's acquisition of majority stake in Techland is making waves not only in the Polish game industry. Nevertheless, for the Chinese giant it is just another brick with which the company is building its position in the market. Tencent has been investing massively in game developers for years, and large publishers have also been targeted by the company.
Before the matter of Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard came to light, it was the Shenzhen-based giant that was the main protagonist of reports (and speculation) about acquisitions in the game market. Hardly surprising, since in addition to Techland, the list of companies in which Tencent has at least a majority stake includes such studios as Klei Entertainment (Don't Starve), Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile) and Funcom (Conan Exiles).
- The company's investments are by no means limited to developers of small and large independent hits. Tencent also owns Riot Games, Sumo Group (Dead Island 2) and Supercell (Clash of Clans).
- The Shenzhen-based giant also owns Cenega and Muve - both owned by the 1C Entertainment group, bought out by the Chinese last year.
- Heck, for a long time Tencent has also had a stake in Ubisoft, or more precisely in the company of its founders, the Guillemot brothers - Guillemot Brothers Limited. The share, incidentally. has been increased after the investment in September 2022 to 49.9%. Thus, the company also gained 5% of voting rights in matters concerning the French publisher.
Speaking of "minority" shares: Tencent has also invested in, among others, FromSoftware, the Polish Bloober Team (The Medium), Don't Nod (Life Is Strange), Remedy Entertainment (Control), Paradox Interactive and Epic Games.
The list can be extended almost endlessly, as the company has repeatedly expressed interest in further investments. One might even wonder if Tencent was the inspiration for Microsoft, which by no means limited its purchases to Bethesda and Activision Blizzard.
It should also be noted that these purchases seem to be working out for Tencent. The group still has the highest revenue from general game sales of all gaming companies with more than $7.5 billion (via Newzoo) - even after the company as a whole recorded a decline in 2022 (for the first time since 2012; via Statista). For comparison: Sony ranked second in this category with revenue of $4.4 billion.
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Author: Jacob Blazewicz
Graduated with a master's degree in Polish Studies from the University of Warsaw with a thesis dedicated to this very subject. Started his adventure with gamepressure.com in 2015, writing in the Newsroom and later also in the film and technology sections (also contributed to the Encyclopedia). Interested in video games (and not only video games) for years. He began with platform games and, to this day, remains a big fan of them (including Metroidvania). Also shows interest in card games (including paper), fighting games, soulslikes, and basically everything about games as such. Marvels at pixelated characters from games dating back to the time of the Game Boy (if not older).
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