Tencent Strikes Again, Buying Minority Share of Life is Strange Developer Dontnod

It seems Tencent isn't done expanding, as it was just announced the Chinese powerhouse just purchased a minority share worth 30 million Euros from Dontnod, the people behind of Life is Strange, Vampyr, and Tell Me Why. This comes only a few days after they announced buying a majority share of Klei Entertainment, the folks behind Griftlands, Mark of the Ninja, and Don't Strave.

As minority shareholders, Tencent won't have the kind of control they could hypothetically exert over some of their more ambitious purchases, such as Riot Games or Grinding Gears, but if the reports coming from within those companies are to be believed, Tencent generally doesn't play much of a role in studio operations to begin with. This is honestly an increasingly believable story: with Tencent having major or minor shares in over 40 gaming companis worldwide, managing all of them would be a full-time task, and Tencent actually has a lot of other fingers in a lot of other pies.

Dontnod Chairman and CEO Oskar Guilbert had this to say on the subject:
 

We are delighted to welcome Tencent as a DONTNOD investor. This is a real expression of trust from a key online game leader, which is behind a number of success stories and has invested in several leading companies in the video game industry. Through this partnership, DONTNOD is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the various growth drivers in the video game industry, in particular in China and on mobile platforms, in cooperation with an industry leader. The capital increase announced today will enable us to step up and boost the roll-out of our development plan, which aims to capture more value from our original creations by self-publishing more games.

Tencent is here to stay, that much is sure. The real question is if there's any studio in the gaming space that can -- or even will -- resist their increasingly aggressive tendrils.

It's not like there's a studio out there who wouldn't sell its soul for extra cash, after all.