Chinese media giant, Tencent, knows a hit game when it sees it. That's why it purchased a controlling stake in Riot Games in 2011 when the company was worth only a few hundred million. Today off of the success of League of Legends, it's worth more than 1.5 billion. That's the future Tencent clearly sees for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds developer, Bluehole, as it's just acquired five percent of it.
Through its purchase, Bloomberg reports that Tencent is looking for a combination of equity stake and publishing deal with Bluehole and initially sought a controlling stake in the developer. However, with adequate cashflow, Bluehole declined, keeping the largest stakes with the likes of its chairman, Chang Byung-gyu, who has 20 percent and its main venture capital investors, who control 15 percent.
It's not clear how much of a percentage Battlegrounds director, Brendan Greene owns, though it's likely to be less.
Still, even if he owns a few percent, he's a millionaire many times over. Following the investment by Tencent and the sale of Battlegrounds 13 millionth copy in just six months since its debut, Bluehole has been valued at more than $4.6 billion. That's an insane amount of money for a developer with only a handful of games under its belt, only one of which was particularly successful.
This latest purchase by Tencent is far from unhead of in the industry. It's previously bought up stakes in the likes of Epic Games. It will no doubt continue sticking its fingers in many gaming pies around the world.
