Update: Twinfinite has reached out for comment on this matter and Bluehole has responded with the comment “These reports are not accurate. Tencent didn’t make an investment into Bluehole.” This is the same official statement that has been provided to several other publications today. We will continue to update this post if any other developments stem from this piece of news.
Original Story: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, known more colloquially as PUBG by fans, has taken the gaming world by storm in the last few months, selling over four million copies in just three months, and over 500,000 concurrent players on record. Today, it seems that Chinese tech investment giant Tencent have made moves on the game’s developer, Bluehole.
According to claims by Jiemian News and reported by Yicai Global, the company planned to acquire Bluehole in its entirety, but after being rejected decided to invest in the South Korean developer instead. The reasons for this investment are likely related to the Esports community, and Tencent have shown a growing interest in Esports of all forms in recent years – they have shares in Blizzard and are the parent company of Riot Games, the developers of League of Legends. In addition to this, Tencent have their own mobile Esport, Honour of Kings (known as Arena of Valour in Europe), that has shown to be incredibly popular.
PUBG has been incredibly popular in China, which is probably what originally stirred Tencent to make the investment – the game is expected to boost quarterly revenue by around 50%. The company is known to invest in successful games companies, not just Esports-related ones; last month, they purchased a 9% stake in Elite: Dangerous and Planet Coaster developer Frontier Games.
What does this mean for the gamers who enjoy PUBG so much, you might be asking? Thankfully, not much. Development will continue on as normal with no interruptions, and this little revenue boost might even mean we’ll see more things from the game in the future.
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