mmorpg-The Free Zone: How Might Tencent's Investment Affect Activision?

[bcbully]

On Friday, we learned that CEO Bobby Kotick figured out a way. Vivendi will sell 49 percent of its current 61 percent holding, receiving $8.2 billion. Most of this amount will be from Activision itself, roughly $1.2 billion from the $4.5 billion it has in cash and investments plus $4.75 billion to be raised by issuing new debt (the company has none right now). The rest, another $2.34 billion, will come from an investment group pulled together by Kotick and Co-Chairman Brian Kelly. Those two are apparently “only” kicking in $50 million each, which means the other partners are funding almost 96% of the latter sub-total.

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[Darrowshire]

It won't. That's how.

[Edge-]

Unlikely that it will affect them much, if at all.

Tencent owns Riot, but if you look at how Riot have been developing LoL since their acquisition (a few years back), nothing has really changed beyond an increase in skins created. Updates are still as often and meaty as ever, and they've even slowed down the rate at which they release champions (a huge moneymaker for them).

Tencent owns a huge chunk of Epic, but we have no indication at all that they have any real impact on Epics development decisions.

They are a part of the investment group that owns a stake in Activision-Blizzard (though they don't own a majority stake), so while they may have a voice, it's not going to be a major voice that will really impact the direction of the publisher or the studios they own very much. If anything, it's a huge opportunity and benefit for Activision-Blizzard as it continues to strengthen their relationship with Tencent, who are a powerhouse in China. That improves their foothold in the Chinese market, which is a massive market.