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."
They bought up studios like crazy and expected to make a return when they didn't. This is the same company that stole assets from Riot for honor of kings, who then took those stolen assets and created another game for the EU by the name of arena of valor, only to roll it out again in the Americas and then roll it out again for the switch and not include crossplay with the other platforms and the switch only to then promise to release a global version of honor of kings effectively killing the arena of valor player base before wild rift gives it the finishing blow. These guys buy up studios in hopes of remediating the costs of their failed projects and get butt hurt when they don't make money. Tencent is pathetic.
I agree wholly except the language "stolen assets" is kinda false considering they own Riot, and they're their assets by all rights.
Well I'm pretty sure that happened before tencent bought them but it's been well documented that Riot was not happy with tencent using Riot's assets without permission, including lawsuits.
Knowing nothing more about it than what has been said here, I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly why they bought up Riot, figuring it would be profitable on its own and would then allow this other company to be profitable with the legal issues gone.