You might not know that Tencent Holdings is the biggest internet IT company in China, and other than owning the popular QQ and WeChat platforms among many other software, it is also the majority owner of developers such as Epic Games (Unreal Engine, Fortnite) and Riot Games (League of Legends). Well, now you do. It was announced today that via its Hong Kong subsidiary, Image Frame Investment, Tencent has purchase a 20% stake in Japanese developer Marvelous and is now the biggest shareholder. The empire expands!
If you are not familiar with Marvelous, it was founded in 2011 and has developed games such as… well go see the list over at Wikipedia. Right now, Marvelous is working with Tencent Games to develop a Story of Seasons mobile game. Back to the deal, Tencent will receive 8.62 million new shares, each share valued at 576 Japanese Yen. Using the current exchange rate, the 20% deal will cost Tencent around USD 46 million. Marvelous stated that despite owning popular IPs, the market is competitive and it will continue to create more IPs over the next 3 years. Stay tuned for updates on the Story of Seasons game!
