Sudoku, crosswords… Why did the Chinese Tencent just spend 1.2 billion dollars ?

© Easybrain < p>A few weeks ago, Ubisoft suffered a historic stock market crash, with the stock even falling below €10 at the end of September, its lowest level. A few days later, it rose again suddenly to €14, helped by a rumor of a buyout by a certain Tencent. Since 1998, the Chinese group has (more or less) discreetly invaded many markets, including messaging, video games, mobility and online advertising.

The Chinese Tencent Takes Over Sudoku, Crosswords and Other Puzzles on Mobile

Today, the Chinese group is strengthening its presence in the mobile video game market even more by acquiring, through its subsidiary Miniclip, the Easybrain group. A transaction (in cash) that amounts to 1.2 billion dollars, and which therefore allows Tencent to get its hands on this mobile game publisher.

Easybrain's catalog includes very simple games, but also very (very) popular ones, such as Killer Sudoku, Nonogram, Pixel Art, Art Puzzle, Differences, Groovepad… In short, titles that offer crosswords, coded words, sudokus, puzzles… and which are downloaded on hundreds of millions of iOS and Android smartphones around the world. The company claims 16 million players per day and no less than 2 billion applications downloaded in total.

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© Easybrain

“As Easybrain's market transforms, Miniclip is the ideal strategic buyer to enable the company to remain at the forefront of the ad-driven mobile gaming industry“, announced Embracer CEO and Founder Lars Wingefors. Let us recall that this same Lars Wingefors had paid 650 million dollars to buy this same EasyBrain.

Let us recall that after having acquired many studios and other very famous video game licenses, Embracer announced shortly before the summer its split into three units starting in 2025. The first will be dedicated to board games (notably with Asmodee), the second to low-budget video games and the third to the most emblematic licenses.

On this subject, let us recall that the Embracer group has notably acquired Middle-Earth Enterprises, a company that owns Tolkien Enterprises, allowing it to have the adaptation rights of the entire Tolkien universe, whether in film or in derivative products (video games, series, etc.). With the acquisition of Eidos Montreal, Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix Montreal, Embracer has also got its hands on cult video game licenses like Tomb Raider. Added to this are THQ, Aspyr, Deep Silver Volition, Milestone, Tripwire…

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