Clash of Clans and Clash Royale have been dominating the mobile gaming space for some time now. According to a SuperData report which was published a few months back, both the games from the Finland based developer Supercell garnered revenues of over $100 million each.
Now, as the news comes, China’s biggest gaming group and arguably the largest gaming company of the world in terms of revenue, Tencent Holdings has acquired a majority stake in Supercell from Japan’s SoftBank Group for $8.6 billion. The deal which is one of the biggest ones in gaming history will bestow Tencent with around 84.3 per cent of Supercell, including 73 per cent of SoftBank’s stakes. Rest of it will be owned by the employees of Supercell.
The purchase will not only assist Supercell to push their market in China through the intensive network that Tencent will provide, but the deal will also provide a thrust to Tencent’s endeavours overseas where it already has stakes in gaming companies like Epic Games and Riot Games.
Supercell will be maintaining their operational liberty and the company will still be based in Finland, according to Tencent’s report.
Supercell has a handful of games like Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Boom Beach and Hay Day. Consisting of just 180 employees the company’s game revenues are mostly garnered from in-app purchases. It would be interesting to see how this deal affects the popular IPs of the Finnish based developer.