The biggest gaming company in the world, Tencent is set to get a little bigger after the company announced it will be fully purchasing UK-Based developer Sumo Group. Tencent had already had a minor stake in Sumo Group, of whom the primary subsidiary Sumo Digital is known for Little Big Planet 3, Crackdown 3, and Dead Island 2 for a brief period.
Tencent on the other hand is a Chinese holding company, that has been the rumor of as many potential purchases as Microsoft over the recent years. They also own the Riot Games, the studio behind league of legends, as well as having stakes in Epic Games, Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, Bluehole, Paradox Interactive, Supercell, Grinding Gear Games, and Yager, along with chat platform Discord.
The company had previously bought up 8.75 percent of Sumo Group. During this merger, they offered 512 per share in the studio, which ultimately sets the value of Sumo at 1.26 billion dollars. Due to Tencent’s financial dominance, they have been the subject of regulatory pushback in their home country of China and other parts of the world abroad.
This month Chinese authorities blocked a merger between their two large streaming platforms, Douyu and Huya. The company is also attempting to work out a deal with a US national security panel that would allow it to retain the stakes it already has in US studios, such as Riot and Epic.
The acquisition of Sumo Group gives the mix of titles ranging from AAA games to indie. While everybody knows Sumo Digital for their sony produced continuation of Little Big Planet, there are other studios in the mix as well. This includes Everybody’s Gone To Rapture developer The Chinese Room, and Red Kite Games who are best known for porting Two Point Hospital. This also includes Poland’s Pixelant Studios which was purchased by Sumo Group in February for 250,000.
In a statement, Ian Livingstone, non-executive chairman of Sumo said:
The business will benefit from Tencent’s broad videogaming ecosystem, proven industry expertise and its strategic resources, which will help secure and further the aspirations and long-term success of Sumo.
This year has seen a lot of purchases and mergers. Microsoft closed the deal with Zenimax for its companies including Bethesda, Sony purchased Housemarque after their PlayStation 5 exclusive Returnal was a major hit, EA purchased Codemasters who are known for racing games like the Dirt series, and Epic purchased Fall Guys developer MediaTonic. Even by normal purchasing standers, there have been many purchases, and we are only in July.
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