Chinese Mega Corp aquires minor stake in Bohemia

[Lindsay.A]

Chinese Mega Corp Tencent has acquired a minority stake in Bohemia Interactive, makers of Arma and DayZ. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.

Read more here

 

[Park.P]

How hilarious would it be that Tencent required people to pay a couple of yuan for every other bullet to be fired for the future Arma game to come? Pay-2-win model, here we come!

 

[Galdis.D]

I'm curious how much of a stake it actually is. Are we talking 5% or 25%? Either way, it never helps when every company Tencent invests in has to do a press release that they are still independently operated. I guess Bohemia really wants that Chinese market.

 

[Park.P]

I'm curious how much of a stake it actually is. Are we talking 5% or 25%? Either way, it never helps when every company Tencent invests in has to do a press release that they are still independently operated. I guess Bohemia really wants that Chinese market.

Depending on the committee that oversees media content in the CCP, Bohemia may need to replace soldiers with pandas that shoot bubbles to avoid violence censorship for FPS games.

 

[Lindsay.A]

Right now it looks like it just gained one of BI's games access to the market in China although I'm sure they will insist the game is modified in some way. If it gives them some $$ and allows them to bring a few more people onboard that's great I just hope there are no strings attached to the money for games like DayZ and Arma.

 

[Morrow.J]

Hope this does not impact the future of the Arma series

 

[Galdis.D]

Hope this does not impact the future of the Arma series

It really all depends on the percentage. If Tencent bought 5% of Bohemia, they don't have a lot of influence. If they bought 20%, expect some changes.

 

[Kastor.K]

They are required by Chinese trade law to buy at least 5% of every game company that's going to publish in China.

Bohemia have a game, sth starting with Y, can't recall the title now, that they are targeting for the Chinese market. That's why.

This will not impact us at all, however sleazy and despicable Tencent are.

 

[Moraru.R]

That said, having an approved company hold stock isn't sufficient to make money off the admittedly large Chinese market. Any games have to be vetted by the Chinese gov't. This means if Bohemia wants Chinese cash their game has to be Winnie the Pooh-friendly.

 

[Rosefield.M]

That said, having an approved company hold stock isn't sufficient to make money off the admittedly large Chinese market. Any games have to be vetted by the Chinese gov't. This means if Bohemia wants Chinese cash their game has to be Winnie the Pooh-friendly.

i guess this rules out the People’s liberation army as opfor

 

[Moraru.R]

i guess this rules out the People’s liberation army as opfor

That'd be a good example, yep

 

[Galdis.D]

i guess this rules out the People’s liberation army as opfor

For the Chinese version of the game, yes. This isn't completely unbelievable as the US Army did this with America's Army (US Army was never OPFOR); but the real question is if BI will make one game for the Chinese market and another for the rest of us, or one game.