The source of this article is Polygon, compiled by the mobile game Matrix
In the West, tech giant Tencent is not yet a household name. Tencent-led acquisitions often make headlines, but it still lacks a presence compared to competitors like Amazon and Google: People only occasionally talk about It and cite the company as an example of China's growing influence in global technology and entertainment.
At the same time, Tencent is also the largest game company in China and the world. Starting with the acquisition of League of Legends developer Riot Games in 2011, Tencent has acquired a large number of overseas game studios in the past few years. As one of the world's largest technology groups, Tencent also wants to build its own metacosm: it is both a huge digital world of various IP and a diversified game platform.
On the third quarter 2021 earnings call, Tencent CEO Ma Huateng talked about the company's meta-universe vision and said that Tencent has the resources to realize the vision (true Internet). Tencent can blaze a trail by combining video games and gamified social media experiences, or provide people with real-world experiences underpinned by virtual reality and augmented reality.
At present, Tencent has begun to lay the foundation for the project, and has set up a new studio code-named "F1" within the Tianmei Studio Group. This is the first team within Tencent to adopt the "Future" tag in its name, and its members will be distributed in China, the United States, Canada and Singapore.
In addition to Tencent, tech giants such as NetEase, Epic Games and Meta also want to build their own "meta-universe", but unlike these companies, Tencent's investment areas are quite extensive, including social media, games, television, movies, music, e-commerce, medical technology and comics.
As far as the game business is concerned, Tencent occupies an astonishingly dominant position, but it does not seem to be known to most European and American players... Tencent is the world's largest video game publisher in terms of revenue, with game revenue of about $6.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020 alone. Online games contribute 32% of Tencent's profits, and many of its products are aimed at domestic Chinese mobile game players, including Peace Elite and Glory of Kings. On the PC platform, Tencent's flagship game is League of Legends. Tencent, on the other hand, is rapidly investing in the gaming industry. Market research firm Niko Partners estimates that for most of the first half of 2021, Tencent will be able to complete an average of one deal in the gaming industry every 2.5 days.
Today, about 25% of Tencent Games' total revenue comes from overseas markets. In the third quarter of last year, Tencent's game business revenue in overseas markets increased by 20% year-on-year. In recent years, due to the increasingly strict domestic game supervision policy, Tencent has significantly accelerated its layout in overseas markets.
Unlike companies such as French media conglomerate Vivendi (in the game industry, M&A deals initiated by Vivendi are often described as "hostile buyouts"), Tencent prefers to invest "in a 'silent' way.". Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmed once said in an interview with the Financial Times that Tencent executives "will not ask the companies they invest in to change their names, but will usually let those companies continue to operate in a way they are familiar with". From Fist Games to Path of Exile, Tencent has invested in more than 30 overseas game studios so far.
Overseas studio invested by Tencent
A considerable number of overseas game studios invested by Tencent have been incorporated into Tencent Games, which also has 5 internal research and development groups, namely Tianmei Studio Group, NeXT Studios, Northern Lights Studio Group, Rubik's Cube Studio Group and Photon Studio Group.
In addition, Tencent Games recently launched a new game distribution division called Level Infinite, which will focus on releasing Tencent's own games for overseas markets, games developed by other studios, and support Dune: Spice Wars, Vampire: Blood Hunt, Warhammer 40K: Dark Tide, Famine: New Home, and other games from Tencent's internal studios.
Tianmei Studio Group
Tianmei Studio Group has developed best-selling games such as Pokémon Collection, Call of Duty Mobile Game and MOBA Mobile Game "Glory of Kings", of which "Glory of Kings" is one of the highest-paid games ever, with more than 100 million daily active players (DAU) in 2020.
Today, Tianmei Studio seems to be devoting more resources to developing AAA masterpieces that can attract players around the world. In addition to its seven studios in China, Tianmei has also opened three studios in North America, located in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Montreal, Canada. According to media reports, Tianmei's team in Montreal is developing an "online service-based" open world AAA game, the Seattle studio is developing an as-yet-unnamed cross-platform FPS game, and the Los Angeles studio is Tianmei's management and operations center in North America.
NeXT Studios
Founded in April 2017, NeXT Studios is the youngest studio within Tencent Games, focusing on developing console and PC games based on original IP. NeXT Studios developed games that are unique and somewhat independent, with representative works such as Unheard, Biped, and Edge of Rebirth.
"We want to release the game in a way that prioritizes and respects the individual expressions of the developers." Shen Li, general manager of Tencent's NExT Studios, said in an interview with China's website Youzi Network, "(Within the team) it is not always up to the director or producer to decide the direction of game development, and everyone can make their own suggestions." ”
At the same time, NeXT Studios is also working on next-generation motion capture and photogrammetry technologies that will help the development team create more realistic graphics and animations in the game.
Photonic Studio Group
Since its establishment in 2008, Tencent Photonics Studio Group has developed many different categories of game works, including casual poker, mahjong, MMORPG and so on. Currently, the Photonics Studio Group is working with EA's Studio Rebirth Entertainment to develop a mobile game version for the tactical competitive game Apex Heroes.
The European and American teams of photonic studios are also developing their own games. For example, Photonics Los Angeles Studios, led by former Rockstar producer Steve Martin, whose core developers have worked for major studios such as Rebirth Entertainment, 2K Games, R Star and Insomniac, are now working on an open-world game that will land on PS5 and Xbox Series X. Uncapped Games, a team formed by Photonics Studios last year, features former Blizzard veterans like David Kim and Jason Jughes working on a real-time strategy (RTS) game.
Northern Lights Studios
In China, Northern Lights Studios is best known for its online games "Tianya Mingyue Knife" and "Xuanyuan Legend", but in 2018, the F2P tactical competitive game "Ring of Elysium" produced by the studio also attracted widespread attention from overseas players.
Rubik's Cube Studio Group
At least in overseas markets, the Rubik's Cube studio group is relatively low-key compared to Tencent Games' other internal R&D groups. At present, most of the games produced by Rubik's Cube Studio are adapted from IP such as "Naruto" and "Voyager King", mainly for Chinese domestic mobile game players.
Write at the end
Starting from 2022, Tencent's investment in overseas markets is more frequent, according to the incomplete statistics of the mobile game matrix, since the beginning of 2022, the number of game companies invested by Tencent in overseas has been nearly 10, but it is worth noting that most of Tencent's current investment is as mentioned above, so that those companies still do things in their own familiar way, and do not require enterprises to change their names, which is why overseas game companies look at Tencent like a savior. Especially in the current global situation is still in the case of the epidemic, and this view was mentioned by foreign game media Polygon when Tencent invested in Ubisoft in 2018, and now, Tencent's strategy in the game market is more inclined to globalization, so for foreign players who are not yet familiar with Tencent, every game played has Tencent's shadow behind it.