Tencent acquires Turtle Rock

I wish anyone else but Tencent had acquired them Chinese government yech

And Tencent's buying and diversifying spree continues.

No surprise, if you've been following the recent developments. They dare not say publicly because China, but Tencent and other Chinese game companies are not happy with the Chinese government right now, hence their recent extra push to expand into other markets.

Of course not. They all have seen what happened to Ali Baba and Jack Ma.

Like how we lost Playtonic this year. And Platinum last...

Weird that that tweet parenthetically refers to "Back 4 Blood" when "Left 4 Dead" is still their most famous work.

Tencent is evil I tell ya! evil, Evil!!

Makes me wonder if B4B is doing well. Not well enough to stave off Tencent, obviously.

@Basinboy: it could be doing very well but Tencent could have dropped an offer that was too big to refuse

Tencent also bought Sumo Digital this year, they did Sackboy and LBP3.

@mysticaldonut: Yeah I didn’t like the sumo news either.

They must really be paying high dollar for these purchases. I still can’t get over platinum dealing with them.

Actually, it's the other way around. It's Tencent that's currently facing huge challenges in the Chinese market due to a series of anti-gaming regulations passed by the government, and need foreign studios like Turtle Rock to hedge their business.

Turtle Rock isn't very good anyway. L4D games were awesome, but that was with Valve. Evolve was a trainwreck. B4B is meh.

@girlusocrazy: Wouldn't be surprised. China has strange laws against any representation of religion or superstition (especially skeletons) in films or video games, even if it's fictional.

Microsoft asleep at the wheel again. They would have been a perfect studio for Xbox/Gamepass imo.

Ah well, at least the good guys have tied up Asobo in First Refusal/Negotiation clauses for the next decade or so, so Tencent or Netease cant get their hands on them. Crystal Dynamics too. And likely Sega with that partnership. Microsoft......do something.

denuvo push on pc killed the company they had to sell it off

@Gatygun: Lol. The average PC gamer doesn't even know what Denuvo is, let alone give a shit about it.

Steam reviews do, and the game got bombed hard when it released because of it, valve culling most of those reviews way late didn't help it as nobody on twitch played it. Which is the main advertisement platform for PC games.

Aka game was deader then dead the next day.

Perhaps the game just isn't very good. I never played it and I certainly wouldn't avoid playing it because of Denuvo. It is free on Game Pass after all.

Good luck. Turtle Rock has shown themselves to be C-grade developers at this point. They had a solid franchise with L4D and turned it into the turd that is Back4Blood.

Having played back 4 blood, I think it's pretty clear that turtle rock doesn't have any understanding of what made left 4 dead good in the first place.

@pc_rocks: What did happen to Jack Ma and Alibaba?

Are you referring to the fact that Ant Financial used a loophole to do everything a bank does but yet does not follow banking rules?

Or are you referring to to anticompetitive / monopolistic behaviour of Alibaba, AliExpress and Tao Bao?

Or perhaps the banning of Jack Ma’s 996 rule? 996 refers to work from 9am to 9pm and six days a week!

So tell me, why is regulation wrong regarding Jack Ma’s companies? Surely it’s a good thing for everyone except Jack Ma!

Sure his companies have been revolutionary for China, but Jack Ma is no angel and his policies largely enrich himself.

True, the Left 4 Dead games had this perfect balance of hard and doable.

B4B just has a bunch of random chaos thrown at you at all times. Like a boss zombie at the start of the level, when you have nowhere to run too... Uh, sure.

In L 4D you could survive on expert because you knew exactly where to find healthpacks and upgrades in a level, in Back 4 Blood it's like: we are gonna randomize it.

The AI director in L4D was fantastic (predictable after 500+ hours, but fantastic). The random stuff in Back 4 Blood is just awful.

@regnaston: thanks for the update. Time to Uninstall thus turd from my hdd. I'll re download l4d, that was actually a decent game.

Exactly. They took away compelling characters, slick level design, good sound design (special infected noises), and competent AI director pacing. Now we're left with attachment filled weapons ala COD Warzone, some lame card system, and one of the WORST last acts I've ever had the displeasure of playing.

I couldn't be more disappointed if I tried.

No one said Jack Ma or any billionaire is an angel. When I (or others) use that example we are talking about a supposed powerful person has to obey the CCP as penalties can occur on a whim. About all your points, nd all of that was allowed by the CCP as long as it was benefiting the Chinese economy and weren't directly threatening their power. The anti competitive behavior has been happening for a long long time and China turned a blind eye to them until Tencent, Ali Baba etc. with their financial services actually had more power than banks which China controls. None of that happened because of the 'anti-competitive' behavior or to protect the small guys.

Didi fiasco is another example. Either way, I don't want to discuss all that otherwise I'll be in political forum.

@pc_rocks: The rules does not only apply to Alibaba it applies to all.

By your logic surely all rules, laws and regulations should have been fixed decades ago for all countries.

Regarding the anti-competitive nature. alibaba, Alibaba express and Tao Bao haven’t been around very long. Tao Bao also used to have more competitors in China, including Amazon which did not survive.

Basically you’re complaining about a policy which is beneficial to society and supported by approximately 1.40 billion people.

What’s happening to China regarding tech companies is the same as what’s happening around the world.

What China doesn’t want is to end up with a, “too big to fail,” list of companies which it would eventually have to bail out.

Regarding Ant Financial, it was lending out more than what it was actually worth while not needing to meet banking regulations such as the reserve requirement.

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