{"id":39954,"date":"2018-08-13T20:59:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-13T20:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/324338"},"modified":"2018-08-13T20:59:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-13T20:59:00","slug":"mobile-focused-tencent-is-reportedly-on-the-outs-with-riot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/08\/13\/mobile-focused-tencent-is-reportedly-on-the-outs-with-riot\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobile-focused Tencent is reportedly on the outs with Riot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Riot Games’ relationship with parent company Tencent Holdings is reportedly on thin ice over declining profits and differences over mobile gaming.<\/p>\n

According to a report published by news platform The Information<\/a>, there are interviews with “more than 40 people close to Riot and Tencent,” including current and former employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the report mostly covers Tencent’s\u00a0full acquisition of Riot in 2011, it does provide\u00a0details around\u00a0Riot’s dwindling\u00a0playerbase and Tencent’s\u00a0interests in pursuing mobile gaming, which has supposedly been a source of stress for both companies.<\/p>\n

The strained relationship seemed to come to a head after Tencent\u00a0apparently approached Riot about turning\u00a0League of Legends<\/em>\u00a0into a mobile game, to which they declined. Tencent\u00a0responded by creating\u00a0Wangzhe Rongyao, <\/em>localized for the West\u00a0as\u00a0Honor of Kings <\/em>(a mobile 5v5 MOBA)\u00a0in 2015.<\/p>\n

After early screenshots of Honor of Kings<\/em>\u00a0were discovered by Riot, employees were upset over the similarities the mobile game had with League.<\/em>\u00a0“They were blatantly ripping off our intellectual property,”\u00a0\u00a0a former employee reported to\u00a0The Information.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Riot had\u00a0brought these concerns to Tencent, but Tencent\u00a0instead changed the game enough to sell as a standalone product with no similarities\u00a0to\u00a0League\u00a0<\/em>and became\u00a0the most popular smartphone game in China by the end of 2017.<\/p>\n

The relationship grew even more strained after Tencent began focusing less on League (with its reportedly declining playerbase and profits) and more on its stake in Bluehole and Epic Games, which are riding the current wave of interest in battle royale games.”<\/p>\n

A spokesperson from Riot reached out to\u00a0Dot Esports<\/a>\u00a0with an official statement regarding The Information’s report, saying that\u00a0“League<\/em>\u00a0numbers are down from their peak, but it’s still one of the most-played games in the world and we’re very happy with the numbers.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

And as for the\u00a0Honor of Kings<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0League<\/em>\u00a0debacle? It seems Riot is trying to put that to rest.<\/p>\n

“The relationship with Tencent is the best it’s ever been. We talked to Rioters about it a fair amount back in February and while the\u00a0Arena of Valor<\/em>\u00a0situation wasn’t great, we worked through it and leadership’s take that it made the partnership stronger.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Riot Games’ relationship with parent company Tencent Holdings is reportedly on thin ice over declining profits and differences over mobile gaming. According to a report published by news platform The Information, there are interviews with “more than 40 people close to Riot and Tencent,” including current and former employees.\u00a0 While the report mostly covers Tencent’s\u00a0full […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}