Tencent Becomes “Majority Shareholder” In Techland

It goes without saying that we’ve all become a bit partisan when it comes to the release of games, who is behind them, and the faceless corporations that financially back them. Oh, what fun we have when someone decides that Epic harvests baby organs, Embracer aren’t letting THQ announce a remaster of something those 12 people are only shouting about, or whenever the Saudi Investment Fund and Tencent start playing sugar daddy to developers. It turns out the next to face the backlash will be Dying Light developer, Techland.

Declared in a letter yesterday from CEO Pawel Marchewka, it was announced: “Today I am happy to announce the partnership with Tencent [which is] in the process of becoming Techland’s majority shareholder.” Filled with a lot of PR fluff about buzzwords that makes everyone else’s eyes glaze over, there isn’t too much detail on the extent to which Tencent will be involved. Marchewka went on to say: “Teaming up with Tencent will allow us to move full speed ahead with the execution of the vision for our games. We have chosen an ally who has already partnered with some of the world’s finest video game companies and helped them reach new heights while respecting their ways of doing things.”

The biggest detail shared in the press release is about the next game from the Polish developer, the fantasy ARPG that sounds like Dying Light with eunuchs and forests. “Our open world action-RPG in a fantasy setting is already shaping up to become something truly special, and the goal here is to make sure it will live up to the expectations for our first new IP in almost a decade.” Of course, that was followed by more buzzwords.

Given the size of Tencent’s investment portfolio over the last few years including Epic, Riot Games, Ubisoft, Remedy, Klei, and many others, it is difficult to play a game without running into a major investor. At least publically, it seems that Tencent has been hands-off with a lot of its investments, and Marchewka notes, “We will retain full ownership of our IPs, maintain creative freedom, and continue to operate the way we believe is right. I’m also going to continue serving as the studio’s CEO.” Undoubtedly some will be calling for his resignation now though.