The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Supercell, the developer behind the popular mobile game Clash of Clans, sealed a deal with Tencent Holdings Ltd. to transfer 84.3% of the developer company’s stake for $8.6 billion. The Finnish company with its 190 employees managed to score a better deal than King Digital Entertainment, the makers of Candy Crush when they sold to Activision Blizzard for $5.9 billion. To put this in perspective, Microsoft spent almost as much as that to acquire Skype ($8.5 billion).
Tencent’s president Martin Lau was once one of the top 100 players in worldwide in Supercell’s game Clash Royale. He commented on the deal saying “We are very bullish on online gaming. We would like to get exposure to this market”. He also added that Supercell will remain independent after the inquisition.
Can you imagine tho, being a such a big fan of a game that you end up buying the developer? I wonder if that was another microtransaction scheme that they put in their game.