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Tencent to acquire Funcom

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Funcom is Tencent'd: http://pr.funcom.com/pressreleases/tencent-to-become-largest-shareholder-in-funcom-2925705

Tencent to become largest shareholder in Funcom
Tencent will acquire 29% of the shares in the independent game developer and publisher Funcom

OSLO, Norway – Sept 30th, 2019
– Tencent, a leading Internet company with a strong online games operation, entered into a share purchase agreement to acquire 29% of the shares in Funcom, the independent developer and publisher of games such as Conan Exiles, The Secret World, and Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. The acquisition makes Tencent the largest shareholder in Funcom. Funcom is listed as Funcom SE on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE: Funcom).

Tencent has agreed to acquire all shares belonging to the Norway-based KGJ Capital AS, which is currently the largest shareholder in Funcom.

For more than a decade, Funcom has successfully launched major multiplayer titles including Anarchy Online, Age of Conan, The Secret World, and most recently Conan Exiles. Both 2017 and 2018 were the most profitable years in Funcom’s history.

Funcom announced recently that the company has acquired the exclusive rights to develop and publish PC and console games based on the DUNE IP for the next six years. The company is already working on an open world sandbox game set in the DUNE universe and is working closely with Legendary Entertainment who will be releasing a new DUNE feature film in December 2020 directed by Denis Villeneuve.

“We are very pleased to see Tencent come in as the largest shareholder of Funcom,” says Funcom CEO Rui Casais. “Tencent has a reputation for being a responsible long-term investor, and for its renowned operational capabilities in online games.The insight, experience, and knowledge that Tencent will bring is of great value to us and we look forward to working closely with them as we continue to develop great games and build a successful future for Funcom.”

Tencent ranks top in terms of online games revenue globally and is a shareholder in many of the world’s leading gaming companies such as Riot Games, Epic, Supercell, Ubisoft, Paradox, Frontier and Miniclip.

For more information about Funcom, please visit www.funcom.com. For more information about Tencent, please visit www.tencent.com.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Horton

Educated
Joined
Feb 22, 2019
Messages
67
Very interesting that they've become the biggest games company in the world, but many players don't really know who they are.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Now it's going to own it all: http://pr.funcom.com/pressreleases/tencent-seeks-to-acquire-full-ownership-of-funcom-2963077

Tencent Seeks to Acquire Full Ownership of Funcom

ig5e372wdaepumsn31b4.jpg


From Conan to Dune: Funcom is mostly known for its major multiplayer games Anarchy Online, Age of Conan, The Secret World, and most recently Conan Exiles. The Norwegian game developers are currently also working on a brand-new Dune game.

Funcom also announce an intention to increase the scope of the upcoming Dune game.

OSLO, Norway – Jan 22nd, 2019
– Tencent has today announced a voluntary cash offer to acquire all shares in Norwegian game developer Funcom. Tencent, a leading Internet company with a strong online games operation, is a shareholder in many leading gaming developers, such as Riot Games, Epic, Supercell, Ubisoft, Paradox and Frontier. The company already owns close to 29% of the shares in Funcom and news of the intended takeover is greeted with enthusiasm from Funcom CEO Rui Casais.

“We have had a great relationship with Tencent as our largest shareholder so far and we are excited about this opportunity,” says Funcom CEO Rui Casais. “We will continue to develop great games that people all over the world will play, and we believe that the support of Tencent will take Funcom to the next level. Tencent will provide Funcom with operational leverage and insights from its vast knowledge as the leading company in the game space.”

Funcom is a publicly traded company on the Oslo Stock Exchange and Tencent will seek to acquire shares directly from all the other shareholders. Tencent is offering all shareholders NOK 17.00 per share, which is 27.3% higher than the closing price of Funcom shares on January 21st, 2020. Shareholders are free to either accept or reject the offer during the offer period, which is expected to start early February. Funcom’s management board and supervisory board have unanimously decided to recommend shareholders to accept the offer.

Following the intended acquisition, there are no planned changes to Funcom management, staffing, or structure, with the company set to remain an independent business. Funcom will also continue to support its long-running online games Conan Exiles, Secret World Legends, Age of Conan, and Anarchy Online. Casais points out that Tencent has a reputation for being a responsible long-term investor, renowned for operational capabilities in online games. Having had Tencent as a majority shareholder since October 2019, has only reaffirmed that notion.

Steven Ma, Senior Vice President of Tencent, commented: “We are impressed by Funcom’s strengths as a developer of open-world multiplayer, action and survival games. Funcom has a strong track-record in developing new titles with long life span. We are glad to deepen our relationship with Funcom and look forward to collaborating with Funcom to deliver more exciting and enjoyable game experiences to fans worldwide.”

Funcom was founded in 1993, but the recent years have been the most successful and profitable in the company’s 27-year history, following the success of online survival game Conan Exiles. In addition to various projects, including the continued support of Conan Exiles, the Norwegian game developers are currently developing an open world multiplayer survival game based on Frank Herbert’s Dune.

In connection with Tencent’s voluntary offer, the Funcom management have decided to publicly announce several strategic and operational matters. Management intends to increase the ambition level of the upcoming Dune game pending board approval, with resources being allocated from other initiatives and possible additional financing. For more information, please visit https://investors.funcom.com/.

So what happens to single-player and publishing initiatives?

Well damn. They're going to redirect resources from other initiatives to increase the ambition of the multiplayer Dune game: https://investors.funcom.com/press-...uncement-of-intent-to-launch-voluntary-offer/

The Management Board’s recommendation to the Supervisory Board will be to increase the focus on the Open World Survival segment with Games-as-a-Service business model. This recommendation is based on the fact that Conan Exiles continues to perform well, with December 2019 having been the third best month in terms of average number players on PC since Early Access launch in January 2017 and with the Company continuing to develop the game with a paid map DLC (Downloadable Content) for release this year. The performance of Conan Exiles and similar games indicates that this genre reports strong lifetime revenues. The recommendation also reflects the belief that both the Dune IP and the Survival games genre are a good match with a large long-term potential.

The Management Board is of the opinion that these factors justify a more ambitious Dune project to launch after around two years of production time. Such increased focus would require a redirection of resources from other initiatives, the most significant being the co-op shooter game, initially scheduled for release during 2020 that has been impacted by scope changes due to external/market pressures with increasingly strong competition and internal delays.

The Management Board believes that the scope and ambition level for the Dune game should be larger than Conan Exiles to allow the game the best possible chance of maximizing its very large potential. If these proposed changes are approved by the Supervisory Board, it is likely that the Company will need additional financing to supplement the revenue generated from current operations.

In summary, the Management Board believes delaying the abovementioned co-op shooter game until after the release of the Dune game and securing the necessary funding to support this plan will lead to the best long-term success for the Company and will bring these matters to the Supervisory Board for discussion and decision as soon as possible considering the restrictions connected to the voluntary offer by Tencent Cloud Europe B.V..

No direct mention of the single-player Conan game.
 

grimace

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
1,958
the Norwegian game developers are currently developing an open world multiplayer survival game based on Frank Herbert’s Dune.

Management intends to increase the ambition level of the upcoming Dune game pending board approval, with resources being allocated from other initiatives and possible additional financing.




. . . Funcom represents another piece of Tencent's sprawling portfolio of investments in high-growth gaming companies. It already owns League of Legends developer Riot Games, Clash of Clans maker Supercell, nearly half of Fortnite maker Epic Games, a significant stake in PUBG maker Bluehole, investments in gaming giants Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft, and stakes in other game makers.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/10/01/why-did-tencent-buy-nearly-30-of-a-norwegian-game.aspx


So this new DUNE game may be designed to resemble Fortnite and PUBG?

The money will be in cosmetic item micro transactions I presume.
 

Curratum

Guest
It's true, though, isn't it? What is the name of ONE truly remarkable game Funcom produced? If you refuse to count Chapters, we'll just scratch TLJ off the list as well, which leaves us with absolutely nothing.

I did buy Conan Exiles and all of its DLC just so I can solo roleplay and pretend I'm in some sort of proper Conan game but that's just me being really desperate, not the game actually being any good.
 

bylam

Funcom
Developer
Joined
Oct 30, 2006
Messages
707
It's true, though, isn't it? What is the name of ONE truly remarkable game Funcom produced? If you refuse to count Chapters, we'll just scratch TLJ off the list as well, which leaves us with absolutely nothing.

I did buy Conan Exiles and all of its DLC just so I can solo roleplay and pretend I'm in some sort of proper Conan game but that's just me being really desperate, not the game actually being any good.

Natrually "true" in this case means "in your opinion."

Age of Conan, The Secret World were both great games IMO - and certainly *some* people found merit in them though this is probably not the forum for discussing. And Conan Exiles has succeeded despite the odds so a lot of people do like it.

No Funcom game is without problems, certainly, but at least our games aren't playing it safe and we actually try to push some boundaries now and then to various degrees of success.
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,023
Nothing of value was lost.

Dreamfall Chapters. They deserve much worse than tencent.

Please... that was not Funcom. We just gave Ragnar the rights to his IP (which is fair enough since he created them).

The Tencent thing I really can't comment on.

Fair enough.

I do have one question: How is possible for a gamedev company to go from Anarchy Online to Conan Chop Chop?
 

bylam

Funcom
Developer
Joined
Oct 30, 2006
Messages
707
Fair enough.

I do have one question: How is possible for a gamedev company to go from Anarchy Online to Conan Chop Chop?

Funcom publishes games, we don't just make them. There is a publishing arm who handle licensing the IP and funding external projects like Moons of Madness and Chop Chop and Mutant. I don't really consider those Funcom "games" in the sense that we didn't develop them.

Our internal studio stuff is mostly bigger multiplayer games, with the exception of the Park which was an experiment to figure out the viability of switching to Unreal 4.
 

Bigg Boss

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2012
Messages
7,528
It's true, though, isn't it? What is the name of ONE truly remarkable game Funcom produced? If you refuse to count Chapters, we'll just scratch TLJ off the list as well, which leaves us with absolutely nothing.

I did buy Conan Exiles and all of its DLC just so I can solo roleplay and pretend I'm in some sort of proper Conan game but that's just me being really desperate, not the game actually being any good.

The Secret World for sure. It isn't perfect but it is a good game.
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
5,104
Now it's going to own it all: http://pr.funcom.com/pressreleases/tencent-seeks-to-acquire-full-ownership-of-funcom-2963077

Tencent Seeks to Acquire Full Ownership of Funcom

ig5e372wdaepumsn31b4.jpg


From Conan to Dune: Funcom is mostly known for its major multiplayer games Anarchy Online, Age of Conan, The Secret World, and most recently Conan Exiles. The Norwegian game developers are currently also working on a brand-new Dune game.

Funcom also announce an intention to increase the scope of the upcoming Dune game.

OSLO, Norway – Jan 22nd, 2019
– Tencent has today announced a voluntary cash offer to acquire all shares in Norwegian game developer Funcom. Tencent, a leading Internet company with a strong online games operation, is a shareholder in many leading gaming developers, such as Riot Games, Epic, Supercell, Ubisoft, Paradox and Frontier. The company already owns close to 29% of the shares in Funcom and news of the intended takeover is greeted with enthusiasm from Funcom CEO Rui Casais.

“We have had a great relationship with Tencent as our largest shareholder so far and we are excited about this opportunity,” says Funcom CEO Rui Casais. “We will continue to develop great games that people all over the world will play, and we believe that the support of Tencent will take Funcom to the next level. Tencent will provide Funcom with operational leverage and insights from its vast knowledge as the leading company in the game space.”

Funcom is a publicly traded company on the Oslo Stock Exchange and Tencent will seek to acquire shares directly from all the other shareholders. Tencent is offering all shareholders NOK 17.00 per share, which is 27.3% higher than the closing price of Funcom shares on January 21st, 2020. Shareholders are free to either accept or reject the offer during the offer period, which is expected to start early February. Funcom’s management board and supervisory board have unanimously decided to recommend shareholders to accept the offer.

Following the intended acquisition, there are no planned changes to Funcom management, staffing, or structure, with the company set to remain an independent business. Funcom will also continue to support its long-running online games Conan Exiles, Secret World Legends, Age of Conan, and Anarchy Online. Casais points out that Tencent has a reputation for being a responsible long-term investor, renowned for operational capabilities in online games. Having had Tencent as a majority shareholder since October 2019, has only reaffirmed that notion.

Steven Ma, Senior Vice President of Tencent, commented: “We are impressed by Funcom’s strengths as a developer of open-world multiplayer, action and survival games. Funcom has a strong track-record in developing new titles with long life span. We are glad to deepen our relationship with Funcom and look forward to collaborating with Funcom to deliver more exciting and enjoyable game experiences to fans worldwide.”

Funcom was founded in 1993, but the recent years have been the most successful and profitable in the company’s 27-year history, following the success of online survival game Conan Exiles. In addition to various projects, including the continued support of Conan Exiles, the Norwegian game developers are currently developing an open world multiplayer survival game based on Frank Herbert’s Dune.

In connection with Tencent’s voluntary offer, the Funcom management have decided to publicly announce several strategic and operational matters. Management intends to increase the ambition level of the upcoming Dune game pending board approval, with resources being allocated from other initiatives and possible additional financing. For more information, please visit https://investors.funcom.com/.

So what happens to single-player and publishing initiatives?

You have to question WHY? What's the end game in acquiring Funcom of all things. I kinda doubt Tencent would care about these licenses they have been and plan on making use of. Is it just to acquire a western studio to have a foothold and avoid the Chinese red tape?
 

Zed

Codex Staff
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2002
Messages
17,068
Codex USB, 2014
conan, what is best in life?

to crush western capitalist swines; see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!
 

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