Tencent Takes Major Ownership Stake in Dying Light Developer Techland

Techland, which develops Dying Light, had a majority amount of stock acquired by Tencent, and we've got the details here!
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Dying Light 2 Man With Weapon
Image: Techland

It has been revealed that Chinese tech giant Tencent acquired a majority stake in Polish game developer Techland in July 2023. This makes it the largest M&A transaction in Poland that year. This agreement, estimated at PLN 6.3 billion ($1.6 billion), sees Tencent become the primary shareholder of the studio best known for the popular zombie-parkour franchise Dying Light.

According to Bankier (a Polish news source), Techland assured fans that it would retain full ownership of its intellectual properties and maintain creative freedom in its game development following the acquisition. CEO Paweł Marchewka emphasized the partnership’s aim to “move full speed ahead with the execution of the vision for our games.”

This move aligns with Tencent’s ongoing strategy of investing in promising game studios worldwide. The company holds minority stakes in several gaming giants, including Epic Games, Ubisoft, and Activision Blizzard, alongside numerous developer acquisitions like Turtle Rock Studios and FromSoftware. They’re almost everywhere at this point.

The Techland acquisition reinforces their continued trend of consolidation within the gaming industry, particularly with international players looking to expand their reach and access to talent. Experts predict 2024 to be another strong year for the Polish M&A market, driven by similar consolidation forces alongside supply chain concerns and succession planning needs.

The implications of Tencent’s ownership of Techland and its future projects remain to be seen. As a result of the move, the Polish studio will have more exposure and growth in the global gaming scene. Tencent isn’t just a huge investor; the company has a lot of experience dealing with game studios.

Tencent has been a lot more aggressive in buying gaming studios lately. They are in talks with ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to buy ByteDance’s gaming department. For those who didn’t know, Bytedance games businesses produce or publish games like Marvel Snap, One Piece: The Voyage, and Crystal of Atlan.

So, it seems like Tencent is becoming a much stronger contender.

Jorge A. Aguilar

Jorge A. Aguilar

Jorge A. Aguilar, also known as Aggy, is the current Assigning Editor.

He started his career as an esports, influencer, and streaming writer for Sportskeeda. He then moved to GFinity Esports to cover streaming, games, guides, and news before moving to the Social team where he ended his time as the Lead of Social Content.

He also worked a writer and editor for both Pro Game Guides and Dot Esports, and as a writer for PC Invasion, Attack of the Fanboy, and Android Police. Aggy is the former Managing Editor and Operations Overseer of N4G Unlocked and a former Gaming editor for WePC.

Throughout his time in the industry, he's trained over 100 writers, written thousands of articles on multiple sites, written more reviews than he cares to count, and edited tens of thousands of articles. He has also written some games published by Tales, some books, and a comic sold to Telus International.

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