Tencent has said it will invest around £11.4m into Fortnite in China to ensure it’s a success.
This comes from the press conference yesterday where Tencent officially launched Fortnite in the region. Tencent owns 40% of Epic Games, which might have impacted its decision to pledge ¥100m (£11,368,397) into helping the game find success in the region.
Tencent are making big moves in esports in the region. Tencent is also the publisher for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Fortnite’s direct competitor in the space. However, Tencent laid out a plan last year to build a ¥100b (£11.4b) in China by 2022.
This investment will be used to promote tournaments and bring in content creators and streamers that are popular in the area. However, as
Tencent are already the highest earning company in the video games space, worldwide, with a series of acquisitions giving them a stake in many companies, owning Riot and King outright and having a slice of Triple-A publishers like Ubisoft. As one of the only companies with access to the profitable Chinese market, they’re in a very favourable position and everything points towards further esports announcements from the company.