Tencent continues to invest in its video game offerings, as it today announced the acquisition of Turtle Rock Studios. It will reportedly have no effect on the development of Back 4 Blood, which was published by Warner Bros.
The announcement doesn't seem to indicate that there will be any big shake-ups, with Turtle Rock continuing to operate from its US base, and the two co-founders, Phil Robb and Chris Ashton, remaining in their positions and continuing to run "all studio operations".
This puts Tencent's total gaming acquisitions for the year at over 100, only adding to an already monopolized industry. Making this essentially one acquisition every three days, it does raise some alarm bells for the state of gaming going forward.
Steve Goldstein, president and general manager of Turtle Rock Studios, commented on the big announcement. “Tencent’s outstanding partners, global reach, deep knowledge of gaming and unprecedented support will help us create the kinds of ambitious games we dream of, while allowing us to retain our autonomy and independent spirit".
This is yet another feather under Tencent's cap, having already acquired Riot Games, Sumo Digital, and many more. Further still, it owns shares in Epic Games, Activision Blizzard, Dontnod, and Ubisoft - so there's pretty much no aspect of the gaming industry that the media giant doesn't play a part in. Somehow, despite its growing monopoly on the entertainment industry, it doesn't seem like there were any objections to yet another studio acquisition.
Fingers crossed, this doesn't affect the developers on the ground. The press release mentions that "[Turtle Rock's] existing team will continue to run all studio operations", so hopefully this extends to those who do not run the operations.
Tencent has recently seen a lot of success with Pokemon Unite, which was developed by its subsidiary, Timi Studios. Development is still ongoing, with numerous updates added since it hit Nintendo Switch, and many more on the way. It's also made its way onto mobile with crossplay functionality, reaching millions more players than before, and therefore, banking on a whole lot of microtransactions. This monetization has been incredibly controversial, and shows no signs of slowing down, so Back 4 Blood fans will be hoping their game doesn't suffer the same fate.