https://www.resetera.com/threads/turns-out-tencent-holds-30-00-of-larian-studios-divinity-original-sin-baldurs-gate-iii-was-this-ever-reported.478758/
Someone posts a totally objective investigation that shows that Tencent owns 30% of a fairly well known western rpg dev. Nothing inflammatory at all, just some straight-up facts reporting that may be of interest to those into the more business-side of things or for wrpg fans or whatever.
And then gets a 1 month ban for Sinophobia...
Larian Studios, the developers of the Divinity series and Baldur's Gate III, is known as one of the biggest independent game development studios in Europe. It's not part of a bigger publishing structure or publicly traded company.
In the last couple of years, very hungry caterpillars like Tencent, Embracer, and Keywords have been gobbling up companies everywhere. While I was under the impression that Larian was still wholly owned by its founders and some early investors, a friend of mine and I did some research into the company and we found out that Tencent actually holds 30% of the shares of the company. As far as I knew or could find online, the acquisition of a minority stake in Larian Studios by Tencent was never publicised or reported on (but maybe I missed it?).
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While we don't know exactly when the acquisition happened, there are signs it may have been around September 2018, when the company was restructured from a legal perspective and a holding company in Ireland was established (this correlation is just a guess of ours though). In the financial filings we found of that holding company for 2019, the following shareholders are listed: 62.04% by Swen Vincke (the founder and CEO), 30.00% by Tencent Cloud Europe BV (a Dutch letter box company wholly owned by Tencent), and 7.96% by Swen's wife.
So yeah, Tencent owns part of Larian Studios. I thought this was newsworthy. Sell my company if old.
A followup post:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/turns-out-tencent-holds-30-00-of-larian-studios-divinity-original-sin-baldurs-gate-iii-was-this-ever-reported.478758/#post-72282186
love starting my day with some Sinophobia on my favorite progressive and inclusive videogame forum ResetEra
And then the moderator steps in and closes the thread with the classic "Thread has been locked while we review a number of reports. This may take an extended period of time. Should we decide to reopen this thread or give any other updates this post will be edited with the additional information. Thank you for your patience."
It seems ERA mods don't even bother to investigate whether something a poster said is really racist or not. All it takes is a minority ERA member (or someone claiming to be a minority) to say something is racist to get someone banned. It couldn't possibly be that what was said wasn't racist, or taken out of context, or the person(s) making the complaint being misinformed or needlessly sensitive. I don't know if that is a result of just being lazy mods around sensitive subjects or something more nefarious.
I hate to say it, but its the end result of “Believe Women!”
No critical eye is cast, no question allowed, the accusation of nefarious word or behavior amounts to evidence against someone.
I understand how important the movement was to bring down scumbags like Weinstein and such, but the criteria put around it was rife for abuse. Plenty of the Twitterstazi turned their noses up at the mention of slippery slopes, but ERA is quite a clear microcosm of that slope’s bottom. Any accusation, so long as from minority, woman, PoC, etc., is valid on its face. To even question it is to lump yourself with the accused in their eyes.
Which is also why the mods are always aghast or aggressively actioning whenever embarrassed when they get taken in by someone.
