Report: Tencent Has "Little Interest" In Most Of Leyou's Operations

Back in December, Tencent emerged as the winner in the sweepstakes to acquire Leyou Technologies, paying $1.3 billion for the publisher that owns Warframe developer Digital Extremes, among others. Eight months later, reports are emerging that paint the former poultry supplier is floundering under its new management, which was largely concerned with just one part of its business.

As the South China Morning Post reports, Tencent's acquisition of Leyou gave it a piece of Halo and Call of Duty co-developer Certain Affinity, which is 20% owned by Leyou. Tencent apparently had “little interest in Leyou's other operations,” which may have included the Lord of the Rings MMO that it was working on alongside Amazon; that project was canceled in April.

“Plenty of employees” at Leyou's Beijing and Shanghai offices have left Leyou since the Tencent takeover, including the entire 200-person team working on Civilization Online. Its CEO also departed in April.

What this all means for Warframe is uncertain, but it's unlikely to be good. The SCMP said that the game “has become less profitable for the company since last year.” Fans can hope that the game, and Digital Extremes, will continue on as it always has, and that if Tencent really loses interest, it will sell the division off to someone else rather than other, less pleasant, alternatives.