Tencent Guts Its Gaming News Site, Firing Staff Without Warning

[DeathtoGnomes]

IDK if anyone remembers the Zam website, it gathered information for MMOs, including Everquest 1, and I used the shit out of Zam, from finding quests in a zone or looking up recipes and where to get specific drops. The site was huge with all the games it had on there. I remember the name change but no idea who bought it.

Tencent has a habit of doing this kind of thing, and games that were still active either had a sunset date or a skeleton crew basically for bug fixes. Kinda like what they did with Vanguard in the end, two devs the last year before sunsetting.

So here's the Kotaku link

Tencent Guts Its Gaming News Site, Firing Staff Without Warning

The Fanbyte layoffs today follow previous layoffs at G4TV and Future earlier this week

kotaku.com

 

[64K]

Tencent is one of the biggest game companies in the world. They have a pretty horrible reputation though. It's one of the main reasons that some gamers don't like EGS since Tencent owns 40% of shares in Epic. They accuse the Chinese company Tencent of spying on them when they play EGS games. Tencent doesn't have controlling interest in Epic though. Tim Sweeney has controlling interest in Epic games and I'm sure there is nothing going on at Epic that he doesn't want to be going on.

 

[xtreemchaos]

i must lead a quiet life because ive never heard of them.

 

[Vayra86]

Zam, had an account there. Good thats wrapped up definitively now lol

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

i must lead a quiet life because ive never heard of them.

Unless you pay attention to gaming news, its no surprise you havent. Most gaming news sites dont dwell on one story for too long, a couple days at best. Tencent has their hand in a lot of things, not just gaming. Softbank bought a nice chunk of shares in 2021 so might have a big part in this to maximize profits. I got this part wrong, I misread the article.

Softbank leak, oops, I mean link.

Tencent to Acquire Majority Stake in Supercell from SoftBank | SoftBank Group Corp.

group.softbank

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Tencent is one of the biggest game companies in the world. They have a pretty horrible reputation though. It's one of the main reasons that some gamers don't like EGS since Tencent owns 40% of shares in Epic. They accuse the Chinese company Tencent of spying on them when they play EGS games. Tencent doesn't have controlling interest in Epic though. Tim Sweeney has controlling interest in Epic games and I'm sure there is nothing going on at Epic that he doesn't want to be going on.

Perhaps but if tencent a Chinese entity company is involved in any way, I am not buying.
It's that simple.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Perhaps but if tencent a Chinese entity company is involved in any way, I am not buying.
It's that simple.

I corrected what I said but Softbank is.

 

[AsRock]

Tencent is one of the biggest game companies in the world. They have a pretty horrible reputation though. It's one of the main reasons that some gamers don't like EGS since Tencent owns 40% of shares in Epic. They accuse the Chinese company Tencent of spying on them when they play EGS games. Tencent doesn't have controlling interest in Epic though. Tim Sweeney has controlling interest in Epic games and I'm sure there is nothing going on at Epic that he doesn't want to be going on.

Path of exile i think thats about 80%, and discord which is a big chunk( over 50%).

 

[Gungar]

Path of exile i think thats about 80%, and discord which is a big chunk( over 50%).

Oh damn Tencent owns Discord and it has Reddit shares. I am so mad

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

What tencent owns.

What Companies Does Tencent Own 【In 2023】 - DATAROMA

Here are the companies owned by Tencent in 2022. Games, Ubisoft, Activist Blizzard, Supercell, Discord, WeChat are some of the big names owned by Tencent. You can check out the complete table & info here

dataromas.com

 

[cvaldes]

Unless you pay attention to gaming news, its no surprise you havent. Most gaming news sites dont dwell on one story for too long, a couple days at best. Tencent has their hand in a lot of things, not just gaming.

Correct.

Tencent also has other properties and interests such as WeChat and a motion picture production house Tencent Pictures (Wonder Woman, Venom).

Among videogame companies it owns includes Riot Games (League of Legends, Runeterra, Valorant).

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Perhaps but if tencent a Chinese entity company is involved in any way, I am not buying.
It's that simple.

I have come to realize, I need to uninstall some tat, Ty all.

 

[cvaldes]

I have come to realize, I need to uninstall some tat, Ty all.

Good luck. Tricky to build PC hardware without Chinese components.

As for game titles you basically have to look at each one and trace its lineage carefully. Things like minority investments can be especially obscure.

But you can safely delete the Activision Blizzard, Epic Games Store, Riot Games, and Ubisoft titles without any further research.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Good luck. Tricky to build PC hardware without Chinese components.

As for game titles you basically have to look at each one and trace its lineage carefully.

Yes, doesn't mean I have to like it or can't minimise it.

Or limit when are where some software is used.

Shit I can't ditch Disney+ for example.

 

[cvaldes]

Yes, it’s ultimately your choice. I’m just saying that it’s probably advisable for you to do a careful screening of your current setup to decide what you can live with and what you’d rather wave goodbye to.

For video game titles you can’t just glance at the name of the developer or publisher on the startup splash screen and make assumptions about corporate ownership.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Yes, it’s ultimately your choice. I’m just saying that it’s probably advisable for you to do a careful screening of your current setup to decide what you can live with and what you’d rather wave goodbye to.

Well, ATM my laptop is my personal computer, I use a few others but they're not mine and some are insta wipers to me if you know what I mean.

 

[cvaldes]

Well, ATM my laptop is my personal computer, I use a few others but they're not mine and some are insta wipers to me if you know what I mean.

Yes, that’s fine.

If you are deleting games you bought the money has already been collected though (apart from subscriptions and micro transactions).

I’m not criticizing your stance. I’m pointing out that it forces you to be extremely vigilant and knowledgeable, sort of like being vegan.

Obviously a Chinese company can take an investment position next week so you must stay on top of developments regularly.

The discussion in this thread is basically a snapshot of one Chinese holding company in mid September 2022.

 

[LifeOnMars]

Oh ok, it's one of 'those' companies, surprised they didn't wait until 2030...

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Yes, that’s fine.

If you are deleting games you bought the money has already been collected though (apart from subscriptions and micro transactions).

I’m not criticizing your stance. I’m pointing out that it forces you to be extremely vigilant and knowledgeable, sort of like being vegan.

Obviously a Chinese company can take an investment position next week so you must stay on top of developments regularly.

The discussion in this thread is basically a snapshot of one company in mid September 2022.

I am not too extreme ATM either, just starting to think I should be.

But Vegan, how dare you!?;p ;D

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

But Vegan, how dare you!?

Bwahahahaha!

@TheoneandonlyMrK TBH, a true gamer wont care who made the game prior to rage quitting and then point fingers and say, "if they werent owned by Tencent this game would be better made"

 

[dragontamer5788]

There's been a lot of layoffs recently.

Snap, Netflix, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Coinbase, Twilo, Amazon.

I've got a stock-market thread in the Lounge if you wanna talk about macroeconomic conditions. (https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...ccounts-bonds-stocks-options-and-more.298118/). But I'm sensing a pattern overall.

With regards to Chinese economy specifically (in case that's related to Tencent's issue here?), there's a lot of Evergrande debt issues and COVID19 issues going on over there as well. I'm not quite sure where the economics / politics play out here, but there are a lot of companies making cutbacks recently and I feel like they're all related to the global economy somehow.

 

[Vayra86]

There's been a lot of layoffs recently.

Snap, Netflix, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Coinbase, Twilo, Amazon.

I've got a stock-market thread in the Lounge if you wanna talk about macroeconomic conditions. (https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...ccounts-bonds-stocks-options-and-more.298118/). But I'm sensing a pattern overall.

With regards to Chinese economy specifically (in case that's related to Tencent's issue here?), there's a lot of Evergrande debt issues and COVID19 issues going on over there as well. I'm not quite sure where the economics / politics play out here, but there are a lot of companies making cutbacks recently and I feel like they're all related to the global economy somehow.

Inflation > recession.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Inflation > recession.

We've had 15 years since the last recession (ignoring the short, 1 or 2 month recession at the start of COVID19). This is more or less "right on time" (or even a little late), with regards to recession timing, actually. The economy always ebbs and flows, ups and downs. We can't stop recessions, they're fundamental to the periodic restructuring and rebirth of our economy.

Recession does means bad things for advertisers, "growth/speculative" companies, and the like. It does mean good things on raw production (commodities, like oil or food), and other necessities. As a small investor, I move my money around based off of what I think will be doing well, and you can bet that I'm moving my money more towards the safer production of the economy, rather than the riskier / advertising parts.

The bigger investors, like Tencent, are likely running the same analysis. Cutting back on advertisements just naturally means shutting down web-pages / web-magazines, especially smaller and less popular sites.