Visitors and exhibitors network at the Tencent booth during the Sportel Asia Conference on March 15, 2016 in Singapore. (Photo : Getty Images/Sean Lee)
Chinese internet company Tencent is in talks with Japanese mobile company Softbank to acquire the majority of its shares of game developer Supercell, the Finnish creators of "Clash of Clans." The game developer might reject offer with their desire to remain autonomous.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Chinese internet company is trying to convince the game developer's major shareholder in order to take over their deal. The talks between the two companies are now continuing and it is doing well, with the Chinese company trying to gain the Japanese mobile company's 73.2 percent share in the game developer. In 2014, the Japanese company got a 51 percent stake in the game studio for $1.5 billion.
The new deal between the two companies might not go well as planned, since the game developers still have the final say about it. The founders of the Finnish game studio will decide its fate, since it was part of the agreement that they had with the Japanese company when they bought their stake. Tencent President Martin Lau and Chief Strategy Officer James Mitchell went to Helsinki recently to persuade the founders to support a sale, but they preferred to keep the company's management under SoftBank, since they get complete autonomy.
According to Gamasutra, the Japanese mobile company bought out the game developers' investor VC Accel last year for a fee that has not been revealed. This has upgraded their stake with the game studio in a much larger share.
If the game studio is willing to let the Tencent deal go through, it is most likely that the Chinese company will have to meet with the amount of around $5.5 billion to buy their stake from the Japanese company. Hopefully the game studio will retain their autonomy, just like when they were under SoftBank.
These two companies will make a better global games publisher that will offer big opportunities to some of the best game developers around the world, if the deal goes through. These developers will then create one of the best games for different platforms like mobile devices and the PC. Supercell will be added to the Chinese company's lineup like Riot Games, WeChat, and many more, if they manage to convince the Finnish game developers.
Check out the mobile game's official commercial video below:
