Tencent buy 1C Entertainment, makers of King’s Bounty

Along with outsourcing specialists QLOC

1C Entertainment, the publishers of games like Men Of War and King’s Bounty, have been bought by Tencent. Among the 1C subsidiaries hoovered up are Muve, Cenega and QLOC, the latter of which provide co-development, testing and localisation services to companies like EA, Warner Bros. and many others.

This is the second company Tencent have bought this week, with them picking up Inflexion Games, the makers of survival game Nightingale.

As a consequence of the acquisition, 1C Entertainment will change its name within six months. That’s to reflect that it is no longer associated with its previous parent, 1C Company, who create business software and cloud computing products. No fee was announced for the acquisition.

I mostly know 1C for Men Of War, King’s Bounty, and several terrible press trips they took me on in the mid-00’s, but they employ over 400 people across several subsidiaries. Muve distribute games digitally across Europe as well as being an “internet retailer” of board games and merchandise. Cenega distribute games through central and eastern Europe, as well as merchandise. They also developed King’s Bounty 2, which we quite liked when it released last year.

1C Entertainment subsidiary QLOC feels like the biggest catch. They work with studios like EA, Capcom, Activision, Bandai Namco and CD Projekt Red and have contributed to games including Devil May Cry, Dark Souls Remastered, Mortal Kombat, and Cyberpunk 2077.

The list of companies Tencent own gets longer and longer and includes Riot, Digital Extremes, Splash Damage, Klei, Funcom and minority stakes in Remedy, Bohemia, Dontnod and many more. Two months ago they bought Back 4 Blood developers Turtle Rock.