Tencent acquires 9% of Frontier Developments

Chinese giant Tencent continues to show its interest in western companies, this time by investing in Planet Coaster and Elite Dangerous studio Frontier Developments.

Tencent has announced the acquisition of a 9 per cent stake in Frontier, which represents a 17.7m investment. For the Cambridge-based studio, this move will facilitate its access to the Chinese market, chief executive David Braben said: Tencent is the market leader in the online games industry in China and operating a premium PC games distribution platform, WeGame. This strategic investment will both help drive our scale up, and improve access and accelerate our growth into the key Chinese market. Tencent will bea powerful partner for Frontier, in what will soon be the world’s largest market for entertainment."

Tencent’s chief strategy officer James Mitchell added: "Frontier’s teams utilise highly scalable game engine technology, decades of development experience, and increasingly sophisticated live operations skills to provide highly-engaged players with complex and beautiful game worlds.

"We believe that gamers in China will become increasingly interested in game genres such as space exploration, theme park management and other segments well-suited to Frontier’s strengths, and look forward to helping Frontier reach those future users."

Tencent is about to roll out its mobile hit Honor of Kings in the west, as the title just was in the middle of controversy in China regarding the amount of time children spent playing it.