On the afternoon of October 8, Tencent (00700) acquired a 22% stake in Polish game developer Bloomer Team, involving 77.6 million Polish Zlotys (about HK$151 million), which will replace fund company Rockbridge TFI as the largest shareholder of Bloomer Team.
According to statistics, Tencent's investment in the game field in 2020 was 33, while in the first half of 2021, it has reached 47. Analysts pointed out that with the rise of emerging game manufacturers, Tencent, the boss of the game industry, has a certain sense of crisis. Tencent may hope to increase the probability of obtaining blockbuster games through extensive investment in card slots.
Tencent already holds stakes in several leading companies in the overseas gaming industry, including Riot Games (100%), Epic Games (40%), Ubisoft (5%) and Activision Blizzard (5%).
"We are honored to have joined Tencent and are delighted to welcome it as our new shareholder. This is a capital markets transaction between Rockbridge and Tencent and has nothing to do with our company's business activities. Many thanks to our new investors for having a wealth of industry knowledge and the entire ecosystem, and we are delighted to have it on board." In the meantime, we would like to thank Rockbridge for the trust they have placed in us and have been one of our major shareholders for many years. Bloober Teamz president Piotr Babieno said.
Founded in 2008, the company, headquartered in Krakow, Poland, has been listed on Poland's New Connect stock exchange for 10 years and intends to move to Poland's WSE main board market next year.
The Bloober Team has produced several highly rated titles in the gaming industry. The company says it wants to be a leader in horror games.
Industry insiders say the company's work style is bizarre, good at digging into psychological horror, the game is challenging, and the game is more difficult. His notable works include The Medium, Layers of Fear, and Observer. The largest game by far is The Medium, which went live at the end of January 2021.
"We've grown from a studio of a few people to a team of 150 people, and hopefully more people will join. I am proud to lead such a talented and creative team. The trust we've gained from Konami, Take-TwoInteractive and now Tencent is a great testament to our confidence in our team and strategy." I've talked about it before, but it's worth reiterating this time – the Polish gaming market is entering a mature stage and the speculative phase is slowly ending. The president of Bloober Team said.
It's worth noting that in early 2021, Bloober signed a cooperation agreement with Konami (one of the largest game makers in Japan), followed by Bloober signing a cooperation agreement with Take-Two Interactive, a developer of NBA 2K (one of the most popular basketball games among players).
According to statistics, the number of players in the Bloober Team has exceeded 10 million.