Tencent Supposedly Looking to Acquire EA or Take-Two Interactive

Tencent, a towering gaming conglomerate, is supposedly looking to acquire a triple-A gaming studio, namely EA Games or Take-Two Interactive. This news, while certainly surprising, does make a lot of sense, especially given Tencent’s aggressive acquisition strategy.

They’re already the proud owners of Riot Games, and they also hold a whopping 40% stake in Epic Games (the studio behind Fortnite, Unreal Engine, and so on). They even have “sizeable investments” in numerous other gaming studios such as Activision Blizzard, Platinum Games, Bluehole (the studio behind PUBG), Ubisoft, and many others. They’ve certainly made many huge moves and acquisitions in the past, but it seems as though their biggest one is yet to come.

Acquiring a studio of EA’s or Take-Two’s caliber would send shockwaves throughout the industry. And we don’t necessarily mean that in a positive way.

Tencent has a market cap of around $854bn, so they’re just a couple of billion dollars shy of a trillion. Let that one sink in. Plus, they basically have a monopoly over mobile gaming and will continue raking in obscene amounts of revenue for years and decades to come. This alarming bit of news comes mere days after Tencent bought a majority stake of Klei Entertainment (the studio behind Don’t Starve). On the one hand, these studios often retain full creative control, so that’s definitely a plus. On the other, having a giant like Tencent own half the industry is not good for a wide variety of reasons. That’s monopoly 101, but it seems like an inevitable future to which were heading.

Conflicting Reports

Nothing is still confirmed, so things might shake out in a myriad of different ways. There are also some reports saying that Tencent plans on building a Grand Theft Auto clone of their own. That way they wouldn’t need to acquire Take-Two — the studio behind Rockstar Games and 2K Games. And, frankly, if there’s a tech giant with enough financial backing and sheer manpower necessary to create a GTA out of thin air, it has to be Tencent.

Some problems cannot be solved with money. This one, however, can.

It’s quite obvious that they want to compete across many different genres and to diversify their product line as much as possible. Plus, when a company has as much power as Tencent does, it’s downright impossible to predict what they’ll do and when. They obviously have a much bigger plan in mind. In any case, they’re currently publishing, financing, or developing some of the most popular video games in history. That last part needs to be underscored. When you’re that powerful, making a GTA clone probably seems like a walk in the park!

Technically speaking, Tencent doesn’t need EA Games or Take-Two Interactive, but an acquisition of either would certainly help out.

In any case, it’ll be interesting to see what they do next. As always, we’ll bring you any updates from the moment they hit the web!