The Chinese mega-giant is not only headed West and other places outside of China to invest in payment platforms akin to its WeChat app, but it will continue buying stakes in various companies. Adding to the growing list of video game companies succumbing to Tencent comes that of Spec Ops: The Line studio, Yager.
Not known for much else besides Spec Ops: The Line, folks interested in the full portfolio will find that the dev team’s work stretches from Yager (2003), Spec Ops: The Line (2012), Dreadnought (2017), and the recent Epic Games Store timed exclusive The Cycle.
Well, venturebeat.com — the site that houses the man that can’t play Cuphead or Doom: Eternal — reports Yager’s chief executive officer Timo Ullmann saying the following:
“Tencent is not only the world’s leading games company but also a prolific investor with a stellar track record. We’re humbled to join the lineup of Tencent partners, which reads like a games industry Who’s Who. We’re confident that this will greatly enhance the scope of our business, not just by getting access to Tencent’s network and resources, but by tapping the vast industry know-how Tencent possesses.”
In other words, Yager and Ullmann enjoy taking the yellow stick up Hershey highway, seeing that the dev team obsesses over the Epic Games Store.
Speaking of the Epic Games Store and Yager, here’s the current list of known companies that Tencent has a stake in as of 2020:
- Riot Games (League of Legends) – 100%
- Sharkmob – 100%
- Supercell – 84.3%
- Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile) – 80%
- Epic Games – 40%
- Fatshark – 36%
- Stunlock Studios – 31%
- Funcom – 29%
- Kakao – 13.5%
- Bluehole (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds) – 11.5%
- Sumo Group and Sumo Digital (Crackdown 3) – 10%
- Frontier Developments – 9%
- Ubisoft – 5%
- Activision Blizzard – 5%
- Paradox Interactive – 5%
- Yager – ?%
Although we may not know the exact numbers behind this partnership according to venturebeat.com, expect more help from Tencent as the Berlin-based studio embraces the act of making free-to-play games in the future as per Ullmann:
“Over the last few years, Yager has been developing our games-as-a-service approach in connection with a F2P business model, and this presented its own set of challenges for us. This is why we were looking for a strategic investor who shared our vision and who possesses not just the financial resources, but also a lot of experience in this field, and we found this investor with Tencent.”
The Cycle fulfills all of the above in that it’s a free-to-play game that boasts microtransactions (like skins and emotes), and it looks like Tencent will be backing the FPS game that’s currently an Epic Games Store timed exclusive due to this undisclosed investment.
