Chinese Giant Tencent Snaps Up 10% Stake In Sumo Digital's Parent Company, Perwyn

I don't overly like what Tencent's doing - taking shares in lots of large companies and working closely with others. As was mentioned in another article recently, it seems like Tencent wants a stranglehold of the industry.

Oh, dear. Tencent is on course to become the world's next EA. Let's just review-bomb them in an attempt to prevent that from happening...

This is just going to lead to more freemium BS. Just like fortnite.

I rather play games than operate cheap skinner boxes where even enemy AI has been replaced with other people who work for free.

Guess we are getting Mobile Sonic Team Racing

@Matthew010 To be fair, it’s not massively different from the acquisitions MS and Sony are making, which has been met with rampant flag-waving. It’s concerning, but so are all companies buying up competition and smaller devs.

@nessisonett

Actually it is concerning, because Tencent is a Chinese company that has ties to the communist government, which leads to eventual censorship, lack of online privacy, etc.

The Chinese government/market can already exert influence on American owned companies, so just wait and see what happens when companies are sold off to/give ownership to those creeps.

Tencent is creepy.

@DinnerAndWine I literally said it was concerning. Just how American companies swinging their acquisition-d*cks around is concerning. It’s not like the American President isn’t tied to several business ventures and profiting off them too. Laissez faire my ar*e.

@nessisonett

EA, Activision, Disney, etc, although they are crappy companies that buy everyone up, they are not in bed with the American government, nor are their business decisions made by the government.

Tencent is CONTROLLED by the communist Chinese government. As are all major Chinese run/operated businesses.

Tencent is becoming dangerously big....

Thanks for the Pokemon spoilers Nintendolife. I didn't want to know Galarian forms and didn't get my game yet in the mail.

Yes this is on the wrong page, because I still don't want to know what it looks like.

Thanks....

@nessisonett I don’t think some notice the double standard they are applying here. It’s just the “Huawei can’t do it, but Apple and Microsoft can” kind of attitude that so much of the media has been propagating.

Granted, if Tencent are just going to be pushing microtransaction filled live services I won’t be on board. They hardly hold the monopoly on those right now. If anything they are just mimicking “the best” in the industry (western companies) in that regard.

@NotTelevision

Tencent is controlled by the Chinese government.

EA is a private company based in America.

Please explain the double standard?

@DinnerAndWine EA made an extra $1 billion dollars last fiscal year due to ‘tax changes’. If that isn’t governmental interference, I don’t know what is. Every other small company out there has to pay their dues but somehow these corporations don’t? It’s just a coincidence they get tax cuts or just do an Amazon or Apple and don’t pay them. I think not.

@nessisonett

You really don't get it at all.

@nessisonett - EA profited off lobbyists of others, that is definitely not the same as direct control from the government itself. They have their own shady bullcrap nonsense we got to deal with. But overall, they can collapse if everyone stopped buying Madden en masse.

You don't get that sort of power over Tencent. Since it's in of itself serves as an arm of the CCP. And anyone who wants to do business there deal with Tencent in doing so. Western releases aren't forced to be approved through EA or Activision.

Tencent can do what every company in this world can do. EA is from the United States, Ubisoft is from France, Tencent is from China. Different countries, different companies, different governments.

@Paraka

I don't think he understands the difference between "benefiting" from a government and being "controlled" by one.

@DinnerAndWine - Some simply see end results and make connections from there. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does circumvent the problem areas.

This is no way defending EA or Activision for their actions. By all intents and purposes they're very scummy too. However, handling them and handling Tencent are handled so drastically different because the means in how they control things.

@Cosats Not really, China owns all the big Chinese companies. There's no such thing as an independent company like EA or Microsoft in China. So Tencent is by default the Chinese government. It becomes a problem when they use their influence to censor stuff in the west. Just look at anything that's happening with NHL, or the whole Blizzard debacle. Tencent buying up non-Chinese companies is essentially the Chinese government exerting its influence by proxy in other countries.

Don't get me wrong, EA and all and greedy and nasty companies on their own. But they don't come close to the influence and the size of Tencent (we're talking about several orders of magnitude).

@DinnerAndWine
I agree. But disagree.
Don't say "communist government" please. Would be more appropriate "Chinese government" as China drift faaaar away from the original Marx and Lenin beliefs. That's not communism anymore. (Yes I'm a socialist at heart).

@DinnerAndWine A lot of your concerns regarding censorship are a bit silly to me. If your worried about a little blood splatter deleted from your live service title to make it more palatable for all ages then alright, but those games are already the most “focused tested” and diluted games on the corporate level as it is. Tencent just wouldn’t throw money behind mature and boundary pushing games, because a lot of those lack mass market appeal and can’t be turned into e-sports.

There is really not much to be worried about here. Business as usual.

Is not just about video games guys. Please watch this video and you'll understand why is not good Tencent is involved in anything in general. https://youtu.be/--nLT7Cu7-w

Between Foxconn making the hardware and Tencent the software, well maybe the West needs less fighting and more cooperation.

Nintendo seems to be getting into bed with Tencent while Sony becomes more westernized, there may be something larger at play to that.

This is concerning given the fact that Tencent is based in a communist country

@NotTelevision

No, the censorship concerns are more along the lines of posting a photo of Winnie the Pooh on a Tencent owned chat service, then having government thugs show up to your house in the middle of the night and taking you away.

It goes beyond showing blood or anime boobies.

@NotTelevision - Not necessarily, Tencent is also the reason to put pressure on sexual representation being changed or voided all together. May be specific to the country currently. However, there has been changes to art direction in some games that have became global status quo that sparked some controversy that this wouldn't stop just there.

And I am almost certain that little bit baby steps into broader, more effective things.

All aboard the Social Credit train for the Great Glory of the Chinese Communist Party...

vomits

@Sunanootoko

Then you probably shouldn't be playing video games.

You should be subsistence farming 20 hours a day.

Chinese influence creeping in on foreign entities is bad news for everyone.

It is not funny what you are saying, it is salty, and not constructive. We all live in a world that embraced capitalism. Everyone in their own way has to cope with it. A socialist can still play video games because it is fun for him or her, go to shop to Tesco and still try to make the world more equal for everyone.
I just wanted to point out that you said that Tencent is Evil because it iscommunist and Chinese. I agree with you, but not because it is communist, but 'cause it's China's property.
On the 12 hours shift, if you want we can talk about the UK industrial revolution and how children aged 6 were sent to work in factories.
I'm not flaming, but history is real and we all need to learn how to read and live it beyond just propaganda slogan.

What the Chinese have been doing to the world with their ridiculous overpopulation, pollution, IP theft, cultural attacks, etcetera, has been a high price to pay for rice and gunpowder. The world would be a better place without that horrible communist nation.

If that Blizzard is an example of what's to come by Tencent buying everyone up then NO THANK YOU. China still does nt value human rights and if companies are going to have to be subjugated to Communist views and beliefs then forget that

I don't think China should be supported on anything considering they have 1 to 3 million ethnic minorities in re-education camps NOW. I don't understand...everything that some folks claim they hate are buffing China's you know what and are DOING IT right now. Speak out against the chinese government and they send you to an internment camp over there. Don't tell me they don't practice communism, which killed more people than the Nazis. People in HK would rather pay the ultimate price than be ruled by them.

Ugh...I get the feeling Indies will soon be the last bastion of free expression.

This is like reading Sumo Digital has been diagnosed with a non-curable disease. Avoid Chinese companies like the plague.

Tencent and Chinese game involvement can bugger off for all I care. We don't need them to butt in.

Tencent is a holding whose biggest investor is the South African group Naspers, and people just keep on blabbering about politics without a clue.
This website should really take into consideration the possibility to close comments sometimes.

They should be renamed Tenpercent.

@Sunanootoko It’s a bit sad that you are downvoted just for mentioning the fact that you support socialism. (Actually a lot of people do, they probably just don’t realize what they like is a “socialist” policy).

Some are really stuck on Cold War propaganda and think “Stalin=Communism=Socialism=
Bad”. It’s a bit childish really.

@DinnerAndWine Well... I’m assuming you are not living in China, so...are you suggesting that agents of the PLA are going to be “knocking on your door”, for things you are saying outside the administrative border of China?

That’s actually pretty funny. I’m sure you’re an okay and well educated individual. You must know that comment makes no sense.

same company that has blizzard bending over to china.

@NotTelevision
Lol and you got downvoted as well.
But thanks for the support. Despite is matter of fact that communism it's ended, I don't see the bias in stating that you support ideas for a more equal society and redistribution through taxes.
Not every country is like the USA, they can be pro capitalism and still apply a socialist view, like Sweden. Anyway, guess many people here should read mort history and economy books

@Sunanootoko I believe the term you want is 'social democracy'.

It's a capitalist system that aims to make that system work for the working and lower classes as well as the eilte.

So for everybody reading here

1) It's not a good thing for Tencent to be buying out all these companies. Because China is ruled by evil people.

2) Communism isn't what makes China evil. It's just a system that is ripe for abuse. That the aforementioned people use.

3) The US system is ripe for abuse too. So much so that income inequality in the US is actually worse than China. Which is why it needs a system like social democracy. A system that is more middle of the road. Instead of the extreme libertarian or communist views currently being banged on about.