We already talked here at TC about how China has become increasingly restrictive with video games, especially with younger gamers and imposing a series of bans.
Even with these restrictions, there are many Chinese companies that are considered market leaders, such as Tencent, which is the largest company in the world in this field. In view of these bans, the company has increasingly turned its attention to the West and expanded its domains.
Although we are used to names like PlayStation, Microsoft and the like, Tencent is a company that surpasses all others in the video game divisions, including being the owner or shareholder of many renowned studios in the West.
A few days ago, the Chinese giant invested 300 million euros (R$ 1.5 billion) and acquired 49.9% of Guillemot Brothers Limited, the company of the founders of Ubisoft. Previously, Tencent held 5% of Ubisoft shares, but with the new acquisition, it can expand its control to 10% of the company.
Although Ubisoft is not the largest company under Tencent’s control, we must consider that the Chinese giant also owns Riot Games (League of Legends), Turtle Rock Studios (Back 4 Blood) and Funcom (Conan Exiles), as well. like many huge mobile game studios such as TiMi.
As if that wasn’t enough, it is also a shareholder in other giant video game companies, such as 40% of Epic Games, 16.25% of FromSoftware, 84% of Supercell, 22.6% of Don’t Nod and 22% of the Bloober Team.
It turns out that all this expansion has a very clear reason, since according to Chinese legislation, all new video games need to be approved by a government body before they can be marketed. In April, after almost a year without approving any titles, China released games again. Since then, 241 titles have been approved, according to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, but none from Tencent or NetEase, the country’s two biggest game makers.
This was reflected in a drop in the company’s revenues, as according to the last fiscal report, we saw that Tencent had a 1% drop in profits from video games, both domestically and abroad, but still, the income has been better abroad. from China.
It is worth mentioning that the domestic market is still responsible for 75% of Tencent’s revenue, but it seems to be already preparing for a possible total ban on video games in the country.
