The agreement gives the creator of Dark Souls and Bloodborne a tonne of money and huge use for future projects.
Fans of the notoriously challenging action RPGs from FromSoftware weren’t the only ones who enjoyed Elden Ring. Tencent Holdings and Sony revealed today that they had purchased 30% of the shares of the Souls series creator, split in Tencent’s favor. FromSoftware anticipates making $260 million off of the deal.
Sony and Tencent are buying 14.09% and 16.25% of FromSoft, respectively, according to a statement made today by the parent company of FromSoft, Kadokawa. The statement suggests that Kadokawa wants FromSoftware to be able to increase its development efforts. According to Kadokawa, one of the [Kadokawa] Group’s highest goals is the “improvement of capabilities for the creation, development, and deployment of [FromSoft] game IP.”
Giving FromSoft the tools it needs to develop Elden Ring into a franchise that goes beyond video games is one of the goals.
Elden Ring took a while to develop because it was built upon the groundbreaking Demon’s Souls PS3 game from 2009 by FromSoftware. The Dark Souls trilogy and two other games with a similar feel (Bloodborne and Sekiro) undoubtedly expanded the audience for these challenging and enigmatic action RPGs. However, none have yet attained a critical mass like Elden Ring, which outsold well-known brands like Call of Duty and generated viral streaming sensations and hype that just won’t die.
Tencent and Sony are buying part of Elden Ring maker From Software.
Tencent unit Sixjoy will become the second-largest shareholder with 16.3%, while Sony Interactive Entertainment will own 14.1% for a combined investment of 36.4b yen. Kadokawa will still be the majority holder pic.twitter.com/T2NY30OBiG
— Gearoid Reidy リーディー・ガロウド (@GearoidReidy) August 31, 2022
Tencent, a company with headquarters in Shanghai, has kept up its pattern of acquisitions and investments. It completed the acquisition of League of Legends producer Riot Games, owns 40% of Epic Games, and has investments in many, many, many, many additional game firms. It also owns 5% of Ubisoft, the publisher of Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry. It also owns 5% of Activision Blizzard, according to Polygon, and this ownership will transfer to Microsoft should that megacorp’s infamous effort to acquire the Call of Duty publisher pass regulatory scrutiny.
Though it appears a little more restrained in comparison to Tencent, Sony has also been on an extravagant spending spree. Most notably, Sony purchased Bungie, which was formerly linked with Microsoft, for $3.6 billion in January. The PlayStation company also launched an effort to buy Bluepoint, a studio known for its well-received remakes. In April, Sony also made a billion-dollar investment in Epic Games.
Anyway, maybe FromSoft can provide an easy mode with the new funding so I can finally accomplish the annoying tasks.
