Five days ago, we brought to you substantial rumors that Tencent was about to acquire Clash of Clans developer Supercell for a sum of around $9 billion. Today, the deal was made official, as the Chinese company has now bought the 73% stake that Japanese telecoms corporation SoftBank owned for a cool $8.6 billion. Tencent, which already is incredibly influential within the PC scene through owning cult PC MOBA game League of Legends, are now one step closer to world domination as the acquisition of Supercell includes the top grossing game on the App Store of 2015 in the form of Clash of Clans (Free). This, coupled with their 12% stake in Hearthstone (Free) creators Activision Blizzard and ownership of ridiculously popular social media platforms QQ and WeChat in China mean Tencent have made a statement of intent in the mobile market and don’t look like they intend to cede their behemoth status any time soon.
While such an impossibly large deal will obviously have dramatic effects for the future of iPhone gaming, the priority for fans of Supercell’s games is most likely to be what happens next for the developer and specifically for the games so many spend a lot of time and money playing. After the deal was announced, Supercell released a statement on their website about ‘the world’s worst kept secret’ detailing their rationale behind the purchase and what it means for them, and for any skeptics it appears that the company is in safe hands. The CEO of Supercell Ikka Paananen stated how Supercell will continue to operate independently almost identically to the SoftBank days, and will continue to be based in Finland. He goes on reassure fans that the company will remain privately held and that the Tencent president Martin Lau was actually in the top 100 global players of Clash Royale (Free) for a time and so is a genuine fan of their games. This suggests the deal isn’t an entirely soulless corporate transaction from someone who doesn’t truly understand the developer they are buying or the fans they have earned over the years.
Of course, with any deal as large of this there will always be cynicism and with the question of declining daily revenue and App Store chart positions of Clash of Clans and Clash Royale, the path Supercell takes in the future is certainly one that will be interesting to follow in the upcoming years. However, based on the major success of League of Legends which has only grown after Tencent’s acquisition of Riot Games means it will hopefully be onwards and upwards for loyal Supercell fans.
