Tencent, the sprawling multinational that spent years gobbling up studios like Riot Games and Techland while investing in others including Ubisoft, Remedy, and FromSoftware, has chastized itself for becoming a passenger during 2023.
As reported by Reuters, Tencent CEO and co-founder Pony Ma indicated the company has been coasting along while its major competitors have been rolling out global hits.
Speaking at the company’s annual meeting, Ma reiterated that video games remain Tencent’s flagship business but suggested the company “achieved nothing” in the market over the past year.
“Gaming is our flagship business […] but in the past year, we have faced significant challenges. We have found ourselves at a loss as our competitors continue to produce new products, leaving us feeling having achieved nothing,” he said.
Tencent playing “catchup” on AI
Ma added that some of Tencent’s latest releases have failed to meet internal expectations, but didn’t specify which titles underwhelmed. He also suggested the company was until recently playing catch-up when it comes to AI tech, but is now able to “follow the pace” of leading rivals.
Ma said Tencent should be focused on leveraging its own ‘Hunyuan’ generative AI model across various businesses. It’s unclear if that means the company’s internal game studios will be encouraged to lean on the technology.
Tencent has been grappling with tightening playtime and spending regulations in China, resulting in the company investing in more western studios. In 2023 alone, Tencent became the majority shareholder of Dying Light maker Techland, sunk cash into new startups like Lighthouse Games, and led a $10 million investment into fitness game maker Quell.
More recently, however, Tencent subsidiary Riot Games laid off 530 workers after claiming it scaled up too quickly and overreached with a number of “big bets.”
Corporate metrics are so fucking divorced from the creation of any actual value that it’s baffling that it’s legal. It’s an economic wildfire and everybody just stands around throwing fuel on it in the name of ‘growth’.
You know what cares about nothing but growth? Cancer.
And Indies are the cure.
Unfortunately Tencent also has fingers in “indie” pies. For example they own up to a third of Larian.
What does that stake get them? They own a bit of Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile), and GGG has said Tencent basically gave GGG a big cash infusion in exchange for the rights to modify the game for the Chinese market, and they otherwise leave global game development alone. Ten cent is happy farming their Chinese gamers with p2w microtransactions, and from a user-perspective, the non-Chinese version of the game hasn’t seemed to suffer from the arrangement.
"a bit’ being 93.33%. Tencent has just, so far, been happy with letting the studios it owns do what they do and skim the profits, but they would have complete and total control of them if they wanted to. And obviously, don’t anger China or you are fucked.
Truth. Working my way toward being part of the solution, hopefully.
We really need people to protect their own IP from megacorps so they don’t turn them into garbage.
Godspeed on your endeavor!
I have an idea to help more people play our games! Let’s put a kernel-level anti-cheat on them so nobody who uses linux can play them anymore! Oh wait…
Not sure Linux gamers make a big enough amount of buyers to care about… but I’m not running a game with a kernel-level anti-cheat on Windows either. Not even if it didn’t come from a Chinese-controlled company.
There’s “not caring about” them and there’s “making it so people who could play before now can’t”. You’re purposely shrinking your active user base while simultaneously shutting out a growing segment of the market. In the name of a feature that’s arguably not even effective at its goal.
So you don’t play multiplayer titles? Almost every more or less competitive multiplayer game uses kernel-level EAC or BattleEye. At least on Linux they only run in userspace, if the dev allows it.
But I agree, no proprietary program gets root access on my system (except drivers, firmware and the like, I need a functional system).
I used to play Overwatch, which doesn’t do kernel-level. Honestly, if the choice was no multiplayer at all, or unknown 3rd-party kernel-level obfuscated unsecure shit… I’d pick the former.
I also keep my Windows installs with the default MS drivers as much as possible, for a similar reason.
Yeah, VAC is the only AC I’m aware of that doesn’t have a driver component.
Overwatch also doesn’t have a kernel-level/driver component. Since aim is only a relatively smaller part in Overwatch cheats aren’t as big of a problem compared to CS. At least it’s easier to counter a cheater by playing better (e.g. positioning, ability usage).
That might be subject to change because i really dont see myself going from win 10 to 11. That will atleast be my time to only use linux.
If you only/mostly play games, and they work on Linux, then you may want to switch to Linux right away.
If you also use Windows-only software, or want to develop stuff with VSCode and dev containers, then Win 11 with an Intel 12th gen or newer processor is a great combination (supports RAM encryption, with separate keys per-VM).
Gaming company lays off staff and complains it’s not making enough games…
Do they hear themselves?
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That’s what you get when you let managers and the sales teams decide what games to develop and what features they should have. Hint: it has nothing to do with trying to squeeze out every cent your fans have.
I remember they were at a German business conference for game dev a long while back and during their presentation they seemed really excited to spend lots of money and it felt like they expected people to be happy about it. But nobody reacted or said anything. It was awkward.
When everyone knows they’re in bed with the CCP it’s pretty obvious that the large majority refuse to play on their platforms.
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Maybe try to learn from Mihoyo and focus on the gaming experience first?
Didn’t I read in another thread that Tencent owns Larian? Didn’t they just win, like, every game award ever in 2023?
They have a 30% stake, but most of their other investments didn’t produce anything. Even riot’s down enough to have massive layoffs.
