The unheard video game giant

When we talk about huge gaming companies, we usually name companies like Microsoft, Nintendo, EA, or Blizzard. However we never pay attention to one of biggest companies in the world, Tencent, which has been rising steadily for the past few years and those who invested in the company in the early days saw their stocks soar. 

The company was the first non-US owned company that broke the $100 billion dollar value barrier and that value has been increasing by 27% percent year after year.

Tencent has also bought Riot Games, the developers behind League of Legends.

What you can’t see, will buy you

Tencent is quickly making its mark in the global gaming economy by wholly owning several companies, one of which was Finnish mobile game developer Supercell, which it bought for $8.9 billion. And while Tencent is the biggest mobile gaming company in China, it’s also buying huge chunks of the global gaming market.

And it isn’t just mobile games Tencent is buying, it’s also consoles. Tencent also dominates the console market in China by distributing and operating China’s three most popular games: League of Legends, Dungeon Fighter and Crossfire.

Shoot for the moon

There’s no other way of putting it, Tencent is a BIG player in the gaming industry. It’s stocks have grown insanely fast in the last few years and with the popularity of mobile gaming being what it is (especially in China), the company is definitely sitting on a gold mine.

And Tencent’s rise doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. Since it has acquired a big player in the eSports scene, LoL, it seems to be branching out to other fields besides gaming. Not only is it expanding its influence by acquiring known titles like League of Legends, it also has a 5% ownership of Tesla, whilst also owning about 25% of shares in Blizzard and Activision.

And while many people think this isn’t a concern it’s quite easy to underestimate a gaming giant like this, especially when it’s paying top dollar for known, popular franchises, it’s hard to resist not selling to them. The only question is, how does this affect the companies that Tencent buys, and consequently, their games?