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Studio Announcement


Bigfoot

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Hello everyone!

I want to take a moment to announce that we have agreed to deal for Tencent to purchase a majority stake in Klei Entertainment.

As part of this agreement, Klei retains full autonomy of creative and operations across all aspects of the studio, including projects, talent, and more. 

What’s going to change? 
There are some boring accounting changes that we will need to adjust to. Other than that, I will continue running the studio as before, with no changes to staffing, projects or other operations.

Why are we doing this?
Klei has been around for 15 years, and we have made many changes over the years in order to respond to a changing world. Consistently, my wish has been to enable people to do their best creative work, to learn and grow, to not have to worry about finances, and be able to enjoy their lives outside the studio. This has not changed.

This partnership helps us navigate a changing industry, and helps us focus on what we do best: making unique experiences that no one else can.

Who is Tencent?
Tencent has been in the games industry for many years, investing in companies that produce games such as Path of Exile, League of Legends, PUBG, Clash of Clans, Fortnite, and more. 

In 2016, Tencent helped us distribute Klei games in China, with Don’t Starve Together being the  very first game to launch on their WeGame platform. More recently, we’ve been collaborating with them on Don’t Starve: Newhome on mobile.

Why Tencent? 
We looked at a lot of different companies, and over the years, we’ve worked with a large number of publishers and distributors. Tencent is the only company that we felt would let us retain the level of control that we demand. 

We’ve been working with Tencent for years and even at points where we disagreed, they were always willing to work with us to find the best solution for everybody involved and defer to us when we felt strongly. 

How does this affect Klei games in China?
As mentioned, we’ve been working with Tencent for quite some time. We worked with them to launch Don’t Starve Together in China in 2016, and have been working with them on our China launches ever since.

Players in China make up a large proportion of the players of our games, and we have been supporting them alongside our North American operation for several years. We don’t expect significant operational changes for China or anywhere else in the world, but we do expect that this partnership will help us to better support our players in China. 


 

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Love that Klei retain creative autonomy, but how does this affect ownership of the Don’t Starve IP? 
 

Would the rights to the IP stay with the Canadian studio, or does Tencent have the power to license it out to other studios and distribute the new games without going through Klei?

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I only hope this prolongs the life of the don’t starve franchise, and lets it grow in more relaxed development times and more ambitious projects, always with the full creative lead of Klei, and the financial support of Tencent. 
 

If that is the case this can be a really good thing.

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16 minutes ago, Tosh said:

Love that Klei retain creative autonomy, but how does this affect ownership of the Don’t Starve IP? 
 

Would the rights to the IP stay with the Canadian studio, or does Tencent have the power to license it out to other studios and distribute the new games without going through Klei?

We're still going to be managing all the IP that Klei creates. If anything, Tencent has shown real respect to us and consistently deferred to us in what and how to present our work, which is one of the reasons we chose them as our partner.

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Tencent is a company that is based on copying what other people are doing and buying out the competition, both things that Klei is not. Personally, I wouldn't work with Tencent on principle, but I also don't have a degree in economics, so really I have no idea what I'm saying.

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While indeed an investments influx will theoretically enable KLei into developing DST (their biggest IP) even further past "Return of Them" (perhaps into a "Through the Ages" direction with more dynamic late-game content, new biomes, new changes to existing biomes, new weather and seasons, mobs etc with passing of in-game years), knowing what Tencent does under direct supervision of CCP makes one troubled. On the other hand KLei is very careful with their public statements... and we'll leave it at that. Let's hope for the best for now.

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