Tencent Going After Steam With WeGame Launching Worldwide

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rgMekanic

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Tencent has announced that it plans to take it's PC games marketplace, WeGame, worldwide starting with a Hong Kong version. The announcement comes shortly after Valve announced a Chinese version of it's PC games marketplace, Steam. While WeGame is tiny compared to Steam, currently having only 220 titles on the platform, Tencent, the Chinese conglomerate that owns it has invested in, or acquired several major games firms according to a report from GamesIndustry. Tencent's reach includes Riot Games, Epic Games, Glu Mobile, Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft and more.

Competition is always a good thing. And Lord knows that the Microsoft Store isn't giving Valve and headaches.

It's likely new releases will also be able to reach Chinese gamers faster than they do under the current system. All games headed for China must be reviewed by the government, and are often rejected for even the slightest hint of violence or sexual content. By launching games via a Hong Kong-based site, which is accessible to Chinese gamers but not under the restrictions of the government, Tencent can rapidly expand WeGame's catalogue.
 
Their icon is a broken egg, weird.
 
Steam is free and has simple DRM and the longevity of my account for over a decade. Why would I consider switching in the first place? Steam just makes everything easy and just works.
 
This is getting a bit watered down now. I have hundreds of games between Steam and GOG. I have a few others like EA, Bethesda, etc.

Id rather just go back to each game leaving its own icon and being its own platform (diablo 2 battle.net) at this point.
 
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https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/tencent/investments/investments_list#section-investments

Tencent also owns stakes in more game companies than you would believe. Like Paradox, a Swedish company of all things... Hence I always call tencent "10 percent of everything". As a gamer, I don't like their business practices. But I already own stock in them, as they've got their fingers in some pretty good pies.



Anyway, my point is that their service's library isn't huge yet. But they have ties with quite a few publishers outside of China, and therefore have plenty of opportunity to grow it.
 
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Tencent owns stakes in a lot of companies, but it doesn't mean they own a controlling interest in all of them, let alone acquired. Anyone can buy stock of a public company.

Tencent won't be putting any Chinks in Valve's armor.
 
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Deimos said:
A Chinese company? Which means a controlling interest in Tencent is government owned. A government that is known for spying on 'customers' of it's other companies.

Pass.
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Exactly what my thought was, you beat me to it. On top of that it almost sounds ironic to purchase digital assets from a Chinese company. They are really trying to reinvent the wheel either way you look at it (yay, another digital store front), I'm not sure what publisher will use them.
 
katanaD said:
LOL.. when i see the name.. tencent, i am left wondering why we are talking about some cheap low level rapper
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When I saw the topic, my first thought was : Why and how would a rapper / gangbanger start a steam competitor. I actually had to look it up to realize that the rapper is called fifty not ten.
 
is support going to be better than steam when you have problems ?

if they have call in support like amazon, I'd give Wegame a shot .......
 
tho im not totally happy with valve, id stick with steam rather than the Chinese firm buying up almost everything in the gaming world
 
Yeah, I'll pass.

I've tried to avoid using anything except Steam for digital sales. I prefer to not have several clients running, doing updates, collecting data, etc. A single unified interface is much more preferable.

Thus far it has been easy, as I have yet to desire any of the titles that are not on Steam. I fully realize that at some point I'll probably have to either pass on a title I want, or install something that is not Steam, and I am not looking forward to that day, but when it comes, it sure as hell won't be some Chinese spyware.
 
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