Chinese publishing giant Tencent is reportedly in talks to exit some of the investments it previously made in Japanese game development studios.
Tencent, the world’s largest games company, has invested in more than 800 developers worldwide, including stakes in Epic Games, Larian, and Krafton, as well as shares in Ubisoft and many others. It also owns Riot Games and Supercell.
According to a report by Bloomberg, however, the company is looking to exit a number of these investments, including those involving Japanese companies.
The article specifically cites Marvelous – the Tokyo-based studio behind the Monster Hunter Stories, Rune Factory and Story of Seasons games – as one of the investments Tencent is in talks to back out of.
Tencent is said to be currently evaluating its minority holdings in a number of studios, and in some cases is willing to sell its stakes back to the original management team, even if this means taking a loss.
This doesn’t mean Tencent is looking to step away entirely from investment in the Japanese video games industry, however – the report stresses that the company is still assessing which of its investments still promise to be high performers.
It also claims that Tencent’s investment in ‘marquee’ studios like PlatinumGames and FromSoftware (and its parent company Kadokawa) are unaffected by this.
It’s believed that Tencent wants to have a more active role in its investments, where it essentially co-produced games with foreign studios, rather than simply investing money in them and standing back in a hands-off manner.
“Video games are core to Tencent’s business,” the company said in a statement to the publication. “We remain fully committed to working with our investees and maintaining our strong presence in the Japanese game market over the long term.”
Tencent’s investments have been the cause of concern in other countries too. Earlier this year it was reported that the Trump administration was debating whether to force Chinese gaming giant Tencent to divest its stakes in video game companies.
The Financial Times report claimed that US officials had held meetings to decide whether Tencent’s investments in US gaming firms pose a security risk.
