League dev Riot Games purchased by Chinese company

Yeah, that sounds about right

Recently, League of Legends developers Riot Games inadvertently announced the acquisition of Riot by Chinese holdings company Tencent Holdings Ltd in a blog post regarding changes to the company’s compensation policy. “Our majority investor, Tencent, recently purchased the remaining equity of Riot Games.”

As befits a holding company, Tencent has its hands in many pots, providing services to China such as distributing HBO shows, NBA games, and music from numerous American record labels. In addition to owning Riot Games, the company also has a minority stake in Activision Blizzard and a 48% share of Epic Games. According to the company’s December 2014 earnings statement, Tencent’s assets are worth 171.66 billion Chinese Yuan, or around 26 billion USD. With the acquisition of a wildly popular MOBA, that number is sure to balloon over the coming months.

Currently, we have no word as to how this will affect Riot Games in the long term, aside from the aforementioned change to their compensation policy. It’s possible this means employees with stock options will receive cash as a result of the purchase, or it could mean something else! Riot and its team have never been shy regarding the company’s full-time benefits, so we’ll likely hear employee scuttlebutt over the coming months.

It’s a little difficult to completely grasp the impact of this purchase, considering that I am very much not from China. The core of this deal, independent of national boundaries, is this; a company that exists to increase its asset pool just bought one of the most popular games in China. Worst-case scenario, League and Riot stay exactly the way they are. Best-case? This cultural tour-de-force gets even bigger.

League of Legends now owned entirely by Chinese giant Tencent [ars technica]