Tencent Invests in Polish Game Developer Bloober Team
According to Chinese financial media outlet Cailian Press, Tencent on Friday afternoon acquired 22% of equity in Polish game developer Bloober Team at a price of $19.5 million. With this deal, the Chinese internet giant replaces Polish investment firm Rockbridge TFI to become the gaming company’s largest shareholder.
Statistics show that Tencent has already made 47 investments across the gaming industry during the first half of 2021, up from 33 in 2020.
Analysts have suggested that Tencent feels a certain sense of crisis towards the rise of emerging game manufacturers. As the leader of the game industry, the firm may hope to increase the probability of obtaining the most-played games by investing extensively and boxing out.
Tencent is already a shareholder in several leading companies operating in the overseas gaming industry, including Riot Games (100%), Epic Games (40%), Ubisoft (5%) and Activision Blizzard (5%).
“We are honored by Tencent‘s interest and are delighted to welcome Tencent as our new shareholder. This is a transaction in the capital market between Rockbridge and Tencent and as such was not related to the current commercial activities of our company. We appreciate the huge industry knowledge and the entire ecosystem that our new investor has. We’re glad to have them on board. At the same time, we would like to thank Rockbridge for believing in us and for being one of our key shareholders for many years during our journey,” said Piotr Babieno, President of Bloober Team.
The Krakow, Poland-based company was founded in 2008 and has been listed on Poland’s New Connect stock exchange for 10 years, with a plan of moving to Poland’s WSE main board market next year.
Bloober Team has produced several highly rated works in the game industry and says it wants to be a leader in the horror games genre.
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Industry insiders contend that the company’s work tends to be strange in style and highly adept at excavating psychological horrors. Described as challenging and difficult, its masterpieces include The Medium, Layers of Fear and Observer. So far, The Medium has proved to be its best-selling game, which was released at the end of January 2021.
It is worth noting that in early 2021, Bloober Team signed a cooperation agreement with Konami, one of the largest game producers in Japan, then collaborating with Take-Two Interactive, the game developer of NBA 2K, one of the most popular basketball games for players.
According to statistics, Bloober Team’s products have more than 10 million players currently.
