Tencent acquired a minority stake in Playtonic Games, the companies have announced this morning in a new press release.
Despite the news that Tencent acquired a minority stake in Playtonic Games, the company will keep their full creative control over their intellectual properties while using the new investment funds to scale up the development of their single-team development to have multiple teams.
A new focus will be hiring diverse talent from around the world, upgrading their main offices, and expanding to new locations as well. The developer hired Danny Spiteri (ex-Raw Fury and Team17) as their head of publishing, which frees up studio head Gavin Price and executive producer Andy Wilson to focus more on game development.
Here’s comments from the heads of Playtonic Games:
Gavin Price, Founder of Playtonic
“Six years ago we built a cool, exciting rocket ship, set a course we think is right and exciting. We are thrilled that Tencent agrees with that course and has provided some rocket fuel to further the reach of our mission!”
“The countdown to today has included (deep inhale)… our record breaking Kickstarter for Yooka-Laylee, growing the buddy-duo’s reach with the acclaimed Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, establishing Playtonic Friends and the successful launch of its first three titles – BPM: Bullets Per Minute, A Little Golf Journey and Demon Turf, signing 3 further incredible beauties in Lil gator Game, Victory Heat Rally & Blossom Tales 2 – The Minotaur Prince, and all the while still being cool (ask our parents)! BUT with Tencent’s help we can scale up and fast-track the super-exciting, super-secret projects we’ve been keeping close to our treasure chests too… things are going to get Bat Ship Crazy over the next few years! Please imagine a wink emoji right now.”
Danny Spiteri, Head of Publishing at Playtonic
“It’s been less than a year since Playtonic Friends was unveiled but, it’s fair to say, it’s made quite an impression in a relatively short space of time. The array of titles that’s already been published is quite something and I’m excited to see how I can add wind to the sails to help us build on the momentum we’ve already amassed to power us into 2022.”
