Tencent, the massive Chinese multimedia conglomerate, has acquired a minority stake in Fatshark, the Swedish studio known recently for the two Warhammer Vermintide games. Just yesterday the independent developer had revealed to have surpassed two million players with Warhammer Vermintide 2, proudly boasting the game's success and promising to its players loads of new content coming throughout 2019.
According to DI Digital, Tencent might have purchased a 36% stake for about 500 million SEK, or $56.3 million in US dollars according to the latest exchange rates.
Martin Wahlund, CEO of Fatshark, said in a statement to GamesIndustry:
We are excited to announce that Tencent has chosen to invest in Fatshark. Tencent is known for investing in market leading top rated companies. With the investment, Fatshark is in a strong position to continue to grow while staying independent. Our unaltered mission will be to bring high-quality games to our fans around the globe.
This is but the latest investment in the games industry by Tencent. The company already owns 100% of Riot Games (League of Legends), about 80% of Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile), 40% of Epic Games, 9% of Frontier Developments, 5% of Ubisoft and Paradox, 1.5% of Bluehole and an unknown minority stake in Activision Blizzard. In June, JJ Abrams announced to have partnered with Tencent to create Bad Robot Games, a new division dedicated to the development of mobile, PC and console games.
In late August, a joint venture with Square Enix was also revealed as part of a strategic investment made by Tencent, with the goal to co-develop AAA titles based on new IPs and to license existing IPs. Chances are these strategic investments by Tencent won't stop any time soon, given the continued growth of the games industry that analysts predict for the foreseeable future.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
