MEAWW.COM / NEWS / HUMAN INTEREST

Will Trump’s order to ban Tencent transactions affect Riot and Epic Games? Gamers upset about industry's future

Tencent is also popular among the gaming society, as it owns both Riot and Epic Games, American video game and software developers who have created games such as ‘League of Legends’ and ‘Fortnite’

Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday, August 6, to block all transactions with ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok in 45 days. The President stated, “national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services supply chain”. Only a few days ago Microsoft announced that they were planning on acquiring TikTok operations in the US region.

Trump signed a follow-up executive order to WeChat, stating, “WeChat automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users —threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans' personal and proprietary information.“ WeChat is owned by China-based multinational Tencent. Moreover, Tencent was the only other product called out by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo besides TikTok while he alleged that some Asian companies are “feeding data directly to the Chinese Communist Party," reports BBC. 

The Chinese app offers a range of functions including messaging, social media, online payments and gaming. Tencent is also popular among the gaming society, as it owns both Riot and Epic Games, American video game and software developers who have created games such as ‘League of Legends’ and ‘Fortnite’. 

Riot Games operates in over 24 offices worldwide. It had an estimated 100 million active users a month in September 2016, and in 2019, the company revealed that the game boats around eight million concurrent users each day. Meanwhile, the Epic Games amassed 108 million registered users as of January 2020, according to The Verge. 

The impending ban on WeChat has got the Internet users worried as they express concerns over Riot and Epic Games of Tencent facing the consequences of the new order. "So fuck tencent but if tencent is banned this could cause a games industry crash in the US again, guys look at how fucking much they own this is legitimately scary," said a user.

One user tweeted, "I believe Tencent owns 50% of Epic Games, which is the developers and publishers of Fortnite so wouldn't it affect them? Correct me if I'm wrong because I haven't done much research lol"

Another user added, "F*ck trump, he's trying to ban Tencent which owns 100% Riot games who make League of Legends and Valorant. They own some of Bluehole who makes PUBG, they own 40% of Epic Games, they own some of Discord and Roblox. The reason? Because it's a chinese company, I was on his side for".

Meanwhile, some of them have noted that if Riot or Epic Games lose Tencent, then they'll have to work on making their games better to retain its users. One Twitter user wrote, "Riots gonna lose tencent backing and gonna have to go back to making their games good. Then we can all thank Trump for making league great again."

And when one user expressed that the ban on WeChat may not, in fact, impact Riot or Epic Games as they can function independently, another user tweeted in response, "I don't think I will but you never know Tencent is also 100% owner of Riot Games, has 40% stake in Epic Games, and has an investment in Activision Blizzard, alongside developing and maintaining some of the world’s biggest mobile games."

Another user suggested, "Tencent owns way more than videogames. They own media outlets, tech companies, they own like a controlling share of Tesla. This would cripple so many elements of the economy it's absurd."

However, the order against WeChat specifies, "any transaction that is related to WeChat by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with Tencent Holdings Ltd.,”, according to reports, suggesting that that the transactions with Tencent for its gaming portfolio was excluded.