More game industry news coming at you following the Team17 buying up Golf With Your Friends and YoYo Games being acquired by Opera we now have Klei Entertainment agreeing for Tencent to take a majority stake in them.
Speaking in a forum post, studio head Jamie Cheng mentioned they've "agreed to deal for Tencent to purchase a majority stake in Klei Entertainment" and that "Klei retains full autonomy of creative and operations across all aspects of the studio, including projects, talent, and more".
Klei have actually been working with Tencent since 2016, as Tencent helped Klei distribute games through China on the WeGame platform and more recently a mobile Don't Starve game. Cheng also mentioned how a "large proportion" of their players are actually from China.
Tencent have invested in a lot of different companies including Riot Games, Epic Games, Funcom, Supercell, Bluehole (PUBG) and many many more.
Pictured - Don't Starve Together
Klei have been good to Linux for games giving us the likes of Don't Starve, Don't Starve Together, Oxygen Not Included, Invisible, Inc. and Mark of the Ninja. Hopefully more to come with creative control remaining with the current Klei head.
This trend of companies pulling together lots under their banner is a little worrying, too many eggs in one basket.
Quoting: areamanplaysgameYou should assume that big multinational corporations based in China are more or less directly controlled by the CCP, and whether or not you think this presents security or privacy concerns, or whether you believe they're putting propaganda into their products, or whether you believe you would be affected by such propaganda, you should not want to support the CCP financially, either. You apparently admire how they do "business," which is great if you ignore all the human rights abuses. Honestly, making excuses for Tencent is a pretty damned weird position to take. They don't need your help.And the United States need your help for spreading propaganda against their rivals??
I like Klei games and I hope they continue coming out on Linux without loot boxes and the like. But if that does happen, then I know there are like a million indie devs out there these days thanks to easy publishing provided by the Steam store. I will not be in want of games.
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