Internet giant Tencent to manage PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds in China
Chinese internet giant Tencent has signed a deal with Bluehole, the South Korean developer of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Tencent will manage the game’s servers in China and will ensure that the game complies with regulations locally.
The partnership was announced by Tencent in a Chinese press release, analyst reported Daniel Ahmad on Twitter. The Chinese company will manage the servers for the game and will work to keep cheaters away. Furthermore, Tencent will ensure that the game complies with Chinese regulations. According to Reuters, Tencent has indicated that the game is being modified to conform to China’s “core socialist values.”
The collaboration probably means that the game will end up on Tencent’s WeGame game platform in China. This would allow the game to be adapted locally, without affecting the game in the rest of the world. It is not yet clear whether Chinese players who have already bought the game on Steam should buy it there again.
Buying games on Steam falls into a gray area in China, as many games for sale on the platform are not officially licensed by the Chinese regulators. This includes PUBG. Currently, Steam is not blocked in China, but in theory the Chinese government could.
PUBG has sold over twenty million copies worldwide and is extremely popular in China. There would be almost six million active players there, far more than in other countries or regions. Earlier this month, Tencent announced the smartphone game Glorious Mission. That game is a clone of PUBG, both in appearance and gameplay. At the time, it wasn’t clear whether the company had an agreement with PUBG’s South Korean developer, but given the now-announced partnership, it appears to be.
Tencent is one of the largest internet companies in the world. It is the owner of Riot Games, the creator of League of Legends. Tencent also owns a minority stake in Activision Blizzard and a majority stake in Finnish mobile game developer Supercell. It is also the maker of chat service WeChat, which has nearly a billion users. On Tuesday, Tencent’s stock market value passed that of Facebook. The Chinese company is worth about 425 billion euros.