Tencent’s desire to throw cash at game development studios continues. The media conglomerate has now made an investment in Dontnod Entertainment of Life Is Strange and Tell Me Why fame. It’s a minority stake, not an acquisition, but represents another developer that Tencent are linking themselves to this year.
Dontnod announced the investment today, a total of €30 million (about £26.5 million) which they say “will mainly be used to finance the ramp-up of Dontnod’s strategy to develop new self-published intellectual properties worldwide on PC, consoles and mobile platforms”. The two companies have also signed a business cooperation agreement.
“This is a real expression of trust from a key online game leader, which is behind a number of success stories and has invested in several leading companies in the video game industry,” says Dontnod CEO Oskar Guilbert. “Through this partnership, DONTNOD is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the various growth drivers in the video game industry, in particular in China and on mobile platforms, in cooperation with an industry leader. The capital increase announced today will enable us to step up and boost the roll-out of our development plan, which aims to capture more value from our original creations by self-publishing more games.”
Unlike Tencent’s investemnt in Klei Entertainment that was announced last week, their €30 million to Dontnod represents a minority stake in the company. According to the announcement, this gives Tencent the ability to propose the appointment of a representative to the Board of Directors.
Tencent have acquired multiple game studios such as Riot Entertainment and Funcom over the years. More recently they’ve acquired Splash Damage, and Digital Extremes parent company Leyou and purchased a majority stake in Klei Entertainment.
Ta, Daniel Ahmad.