Here's a bit of industry news for you. Techland, developer of Dying Light, have announced some "exciting news" about the future of their studio.
After the usual PR talk about wanting the best for the studio, Techland CEO Pawel Marchewka dropped word that Tencent are going to be acquiring a "majority shareholder". Marchewka went onto mention the deal will allow them to "move full speed ahead with the execution of the vision for our games" and that they will retain full ownership of their IPs and maintain creative freedom.
Because we all enjoy game industry consolidation right? What could possibly go wrong with all these big groups swallowing up publishers and developers? There's Microsoft grabbing Activision Blizzard, Embracer eating up everything they can and then closing a bunch and of course Tencent back again with more.
Tencent have invested into (and in some cases fully own) the likes of Riot Games, Epic Games, Turtle Rock Studios, Funcom, Bloober Team, Don't Nod, FromSoftware and plenty more.
What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
All posts need to follow our rules. For users logged in: please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Guest readers can email us for any issues.
Yes, well. As with the MS acquisition, it sucks. Way too much of this kind of thing going on.
I just hope that ultimately it turns out that new studios come up faster than the big boys can cannibalize them.
I just hope that ultimately it turns out that new studios come up faster than the big boys can cannibalize them.
14 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje 24 Jul 2023
What it comes down to is... more indie studios need to spawn up and make games for old platforms as well as new. Otherwise we are going to end up like most other industries have, where there are really only 3 or 4 big corporations that own all of the pie.
10 Likes, Who?
I get the need for publishers/investors. But i won't pretend it is a good idea to consolidate the whole market into two or three big players. And that is not even considering the shady nature of Tencent. So...thumbs down from me...
4 Likes, Who?
I literally cannot voice my disgust enough. For shame Techland.
The legendary Dying Light community manager Uncy posted in the DL Discord three days ago that he is leaving Techland after 5+ years, the most beloved person in the community hands down. His reasoning "wanting to try new things" now seems rather suspect. I'm extremely disappointed and upset over this.
The legendary Dying Light community manager Uncy posted in the DL Discord three days ago that he is leaving Techland after 5+ years, the most beloved person in the community hands down. His reasoning "wanting to try new things" now seems rather suspect. I'm extremely disappointed and upset over this.
11 Likes, Who?
What we need is more opensource games, crowd funded or via donations using powerful modern FOSS game Engines.
Sure they may not quite have the polish of titles like Dying Light, but at least you can afford them and they are not locked behind dodgy monetary systems and the surveillance capitalism model with DRM / Anti-cheat (cough.. spyware) let alone they will be guaranteed to run without an emulation layer and will probably run better on lower end hardware.
Games are not all about graphics, look at battlebit remastered for instance, are you telling me a game made by 4 young individuals between their full time wagie jobs using unity is not a feat capable by opensource game devs / coders ? We could crowd fund the exact equivalents for each game genre using GODOT. Make them modifiable and there you have it..
Last edited by Lofty on 24 Jul 2023 at 6:05 pm UTC
Sure they may not quite have the polish of titles like Dying Light, but at least you can afford them and they are not locked behind dodgy monetary systems and the surveillance capitalism model with DRM / Anti-cheat (cough.. spyware) let alone they will be guaranteed to run without an emulation layer and will probably run better on lower end hardware.
Games are not all about graphics, look at battlebit remastered for instance, are you telling me a game made by 4 young individuals between their full time wagie jobs using unity is not a feat capable by opensource game devs / coders ? We could crowd fund the exact equivalents for each game genre using GODOT. Make them modifiable and there you have it..
Last edited by Lofty on 24 Jul 2023 at 6:05 pm UTC
8 Likes, Who?
Not a game or developer I've ever heard of, but this is worrying stuff as usual - this sort of thing will inevitably add up to something that will negatively affect me in the end, even if it doesn't right now.
2 Likes, Who?
Not a good news.
Moment Tencent got hand on Back4Blood, development and support of game ended.
Moment Tencent got hand on Back4Blood, development and support of game ended.
3 Likes, Who?
StalePopcorn 24 Jul 2023
crap.
0 Likes
What we need is more opensource games, crowd funded or via donations using powerful modern FOSS game Engines.
Sure they may not quite have the polish of titles like Dying Light, but at least you can afford them and they are not locked behind dodgy monetary systems and the surveillance capitalism model with DRM / Anti-cheat (cough.. spyware) let alone they will be guaranteed to run without an emulation layer and will probably run better on lower end hardware.
Games are not all about graphics, look at battlebit remastered for instance, are you telling me a game made by 4 young individuals between their full time wagie jobs using unity is not a feat capable by opensource game devs / coders ? We could crowd fund the exact equivalents for each game genre using GODOT. Make them modifiable and there you have it..
If you wanna support the indie FOSS gaming market buy these games pls, they're made using Godot and they're killing it.
Brotato
Cassette Beast
Halls of Torment
7 Likes, Who?
Techland founder is one of the richest people in Poland so it's not like he had to sell. Pure greed.
4 Likes, Who?
I literally cannot voice my disgust enough. For shame Techland.
The legendary Dying Light community manager Uncy posted in the DL Discord three days ago that he is leaving Techland after 5+ years, the most beloved person in the community hands down. His reasoning "wanting to try new things" now seems rather suspect. I'm extremely disappointed and upset over this.
Well let's face it, every man has a price on this planet. If you're offered millions and can retire tomorrow, you're going to say oh no, I prefer to remain poor because of my ideals?
There are a few people like this, but they are very few.
Anyway, this game can rest in peace tencent will just try to monetize the hell out of it.
Well, given what PB says above, it sounds like they were not actually 'poor' at all, let alone poor by western standards. I take your point, but there is a difference between making good (still epic by most people standards) money, paying your fair taxes and paying your workforce well (even sprinkling some on your local community / charity) VS profiteering out of the sake of pure greed, because you really need that extra 25 million to put into that offshore tax haven.
1 Likes, Who?
A gaming dev/publisher taken over by a large corporation........ Just another day ending in Y.........
2 Likes, Who?
I'm all in favour of game studios selling themselves to Tencent and Microsft, just as long as every single person from the bought studio immediately quits and form a new game studio with their freshly earned money...
jokes aside, yeah, this is horrible and just the sort of thing that makes me happy to support a games store that acts as a games store not as a mafia boss for the entire gaming vertical
arguably Valve is closer to my preferences in this regard, but I'd be happy to hear what's the general take on which other big fish are acting nice towards the existance of small fish
jokes aside, yeah, this is horrible and just the sort of thing that makes me happy to support a games store that acts as a games store not as a mafia boss for the entire gaming vertical
arguably Valve is closer to my preferences in this regard, but I'd be happy to hear what's the general take on which other big fish are acting nice towards the existance of small fish
2 Likes, Who?
If you wanna support the indie FOSS gaming market buy these games pls, they're made using Godot and they're killing it.Cassete Beasts is indeed awesome!
Brotato
Cassette Beast
Halls of Torment
I'll have to look up the others now!
Godot is such a nice engine for Linux, gotta love how little iissues it causes for us compared to Unity.
Last edited by Marlock on 24 Jul 2023 at 10:02 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
If you wanna support the indie FOSS gaming market buy these games pls, they're made using Godot and they're killing it.
Brotato
Cassette Beast
Halls of Torment
Cassete Beasts is indeed awesome!Don't forget Ex-Zodiac, as well! Superb Star Fox spiritual-successor rail-shooter, with native Linux support. Runs great, and plays exactly like I was hoping for.
I'll have to look up the others now!
Godot is such a nice engine for Linux, gotta love how little iissues it causes for us compared to Unity.
3 Likes, Who?
Expect them go Epic-first or exclusive for their next game...
1 Likes, Who?
Majority shareholder
and...
they will retain full ownership of their IPs and maintain creative freedom
Pinky swear!
4 Likes, Who?
benstor214 25 Jul 2023
‘Right… they do still own their IPs and, of course, they are free to be creative on these IPs in their free time. 😉Majority shareholder
and...
they will retain full ownership of their IPs and maintain creative freedom
Pinky swear!
Naturally, from 9 to 5 we fully expect them to work on whatever we tell them to work on.’ - the majority stakeholders
Last edited by benstor214 on 25 Jul 2023 at 2:04 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
Turkeysteaks 25 Jul 2023
Genuinely pretty gutted about this. Techland is one of my favourite game developers, and I hoped to work for them in a couple years. They've been pretty close to my heart with the games they've published and the community they built. But I guess no more. Damn.
I'm beyond sick of these monopolistic practices. Ugh.
I'm beyond sick of these monopolistic practices. Ugh.
2 Likes, Who?
Patreon
PayPal
An idiots guide to setting up Minecraft on Steam Deck / SteamOS with controller support
How to install extra software, apps and games on SteamOS and Steam Deck
See more from me