Tencent’s bid to create the next FromSoftware and Larian

Look, we want to work with you if you believe one day you can be the category leader in this particular genre. And that could be today, that could be two games from now, three games from now, whatever that is. Our studios are creating great IPs. Some of them already have great IPs like Warframe, like Path of Exile, but at the end of the day, they're still quite niche. Certainly, if if they get to the thousand mark, which I guess the Steam Machine has, but it's going to hurt. but also more and [music] more you'll see kind of backwards compatibility.
Hello and welcome to the game business show. This week's edition is sponsored by Keyword Studios. Now Keywords is of course the major video game industry end-to-end partner which offers all sorts of services that help game developers to make their games, launch them and then support them afterwards. And they do it at a global scale. They've got 13,000 people across 26 countries. Now for game art, that means creative production at scale without losing the craft, consistency or intent.

From concept and asset creation to full production pipelines, Keywords help studios expand creative capacity, support world building, and deliver art from concept to final player experience. Keyword says they're supercharged by technology and shaped by long-term partnership, connecting specialist expertise around the player experience. You can find out more on the Keyword Studios website or by clicking on the links. They're in the newsletter attached with this very show. Speaking of which, let's get to that show. Today, we have an interview with Yong Yi Zoo, who is VP and head of operations strategy and compliance at 10-centent Games, which of course is very much the superpower in the modern video game industry. Now, Zoo looks after 10centent studios outside of China and also works on bringing 10-centent games from China into Western markets. Now, we did this interview at Gamescom 2026, and we touched upon the growth of Chinese-made games, what 10-centent looks for in their studios, and Zoo has also been actively working with 10 cents developers in bringing their games to TV

and film as well. So, there's lots of stuff to touch upon. And here is our chat. Enjoy it. Hello, Young Lee. Welcome to the show.
Hi. It's great to be on.
Yeah. Well, I hear you've been listening.
I I have. [laughter] any particular episode that uh
No, I I uh I I love all your insights uh on the industry and the folks that you speak to. It's uh it's really an honor to to get to speak with you. So, I'm excited.
Well, I'm going to ask a stupid question to begin with because um I need your help. I Tencent is such a
I knew this was coming and it's not a stupid question at all.
Well, it's such a complicated company. I find it very hard to go, well, hang on. What bit you know, you've got all these subsidiaries, you've got Level Infinite, you've got 10 games. How is it as as succinctly as you possibly can? And how is the construction? How's it work?
No, I was actually prepared to to to talk about this. So, uh, Tensson Games, we'll just stick on the game part. It first of all, Tensson is a humongous company. Um, but on the game side, we have kind of our self-development studio. So, Timmy, Lightseed, Aurora, Morund, that's under one umbrella. Um, and then on the other side, you've got

kind of the publishing teams that work with a number of different studios. You have Riot publishing, uh, Supercell Publishing, uh, China publishing and then there's the department that I work in which is called IEG which is, uh, interactive entertainment and game global. So the G is for global and within that basically level infinite is our kind of overseas banner. So what what we what I do and what we do is uh we take games that are developed domestically and help publish them overseas or we take the games that um that our studios so we've got about 20 studios under management the studios that that we work with and publish them all over the world and Level Infinite will sometimes help them and Level Infinite helps them with a number of different ways. Um and then in addition to that we will have some partner studios whether it's uh invests who we support. Uh so when you go to the Infinite booth, you'll see a number of different games. Some of them are invest.

Okay.
Right. I think I got it. Yeah. Um well, let's talk about Gamescom. We're at Gamescom and Chinese companies are everywhere, right? It's opening night live. So many games coming out of China on that show. What's happening here?
Yeah, it's funny. I was just talking to someone about this and u my hypothesis is um you've had I think if you if you rewind you know 5 years
the focus of those Chinese companies have previously been in mobile games they've seen success they've done really well and they know what a good mobile game that succeeds in China looks like and and to a to a a lesser extent maybe globally will look like but I will say like with Blackmth Wukong it's really up the bar on console PC but it also shows those Chinese developers are quite talented and now they have a sense of this is what console PC success in the west looks like and by the way we can do it and at the same time you know the tools that they have access to they

recognize are are way better and so kind of across all of these things it's enabled them to really make high quality games that look terrific there was a variety to them as well I think there's a certain expectation of a game from China might look like this and it's in this sort of genre and that kind of thing but there a World War II shooter, right?
How many billions of people there are in China. I'm sure they all have different interests and that's right.
And I I spoke to we had Jagex on the show recently and they talked about how they launched Runescape into China and they actually felt that it wasn't going to do very well because it's very British. It's a very British game actually found a massive audience, you know, there's just lots of and I think that's true going the other way as well as we're finding out when you're bringing your games from China over here. Is there an element of or it's a western markets do you change much? Is there a need to, you know, does, sorry, let me rephrase the question. Because some of those games have been so successful over here, is there an element of we're thinking about our games in a more global way, something that might appeal more to the west, or is it actually the West quite opening up to games from the east, do you think?

I think it depends on the game. Um, some games just resonate globally. Others are very regionally specific and they kind of um you know we've seen right now we're we're helping to publish Honor of Kings which you know in China is the is the biggest game.
Um and overseas we've seen some regions where it resonates and it's partially because of the genre. MOBAs are big in certain regions and not so big in other regions. And so for us it's more about kind of finding those pockets where does it really resonate with uh with a particular audience and then understanding how do we amplify that opportunity with that audience. So once we find an audience then we'll say okay let's you know how do we put some of that culture in the game? How do we uh publish in a way that resonates more with the people that that live in that particular country? All of these things.
I'll change the subject a little bit because Tensson's obviously been investing in a lot of uh studios all over the world in China outside of China. Um, but there's been obviously quite a few I wouldn't say there's not been that many closures, but certainly a lot of cuts and refocusing of businesses. That's not just a 10-centent

thing. That's an industrywide thing. I know. Is the appetite shifting a little bit around games in China doing so well globally? Maybe we don't need to invest quite so much globally. Is that is that part of the thinking or I'm speculating a bit.
Um, I think if you look at our BD team, they are here and talking to everyone across all the different regions. So, I I I don't think it's necessarily that. I bet they speak more now to and this is purely speculation on my part as well that they speak more to the Chinese developers because they've seen highquality products and for us it's more about chasing high quality talent and people that are bringing unique visions um have a very specific vision. We love to work with developers that uh you know are trying to hone their craft like um you know the the the the studios that we always cite as kind of for us are like you know our northstar like Larian from software they've been in a particular genre for a long time and iterating on that genre and for us we uh and we for us we we try to do the same

thing with our our internal studios is like look um we want to work with you if you believe one day you can be the category leader in in this particular genre. And that could be today, that could be two games from now, three games from now, whatever that is. But as as long as we kind of see that progress, um that for us is more the the long-term uh commitment. Uh you look at our like those two partnerships specifically that I talked about, right? It wasn't an overnight success. It was um multiple Divinities into Balders's Gate. It was, you know, Demon Souls into Dark Souls into Bloodborne, and then finally into Elden Ring, which was so big. So um for for us we have
you have a long game approach.
We do have a long game approach. That's that's one thing that I think is very unique to Tencent and I and I think um suits us well in working with uh developers for you know number of different developers and for a long time to come.
We've had two ten companies on our show. We had Sumo, we had Digital Extremes
and um both of them

basically said to us that you kind of leave them alone. there's options to get involved in things if they want to. What's the thinking there or or is that changing at all? Is there feel like a need to sort of um get a bit more involved?
No, I think it's good that they think we leave them alone. [laughter] I think um they think that
No, look, at the end of the day, we try to find studios that have the potential to be independent, right? Like look at Riot, look at Supercell. They effectively operate by themselves except for China Publishing, which we have to be on the hook for anyway, right? Um that's a that's a that's a 10-centent obligation. Um from a Chinese government standpoint and uh for a company like DE, um you know, they've been at this for what 13 years now. They know what they're doing. And uh and for us, it's more about finding opportunities to work with them to amplify. um do they need publishing support in China? Do they need publishing support in regions that you know maybe they it's not their primary language? How do we connect with

those communities for them or with them? Um can we find opportunities for them in other spaces whether it be um uh you know partnerships or other things that we have access to like those are the types of things. Now they could come and say which they don't but they could come and say hey we have a technical issue and we actually want you to help. In that case certainly we would provide expertise. Um but to be honest de doesn't really need that type of support. Um but they you know what they did they they they at one point they were like hey can you help us with some technical things around uh porting to Android and we tried to find developers that could support them. Um but ultimately I think they found a partner that they could work with and were like that's that's great too.
Is there an element of connecting some of these studios together because I imagine you've got different worlds, different countries, different territories, different experiences. you know talked about the the mobile developers in China that sort of going to PC and console and then bringing that learning there. Is there an element of maybe more cross sharing? I I think you do do these sort of you know like town halls I guess with multiple studio heads

I hear about anyway.
100%. We uh just had a leadership offsite two days ago. Oh wow. With uh kind of all of our studio CEOs. um goal is to kind of you know give them insights on what's happening in the industry and then also just to talk about how uh we can support or help with the cross-pollination across all these studios. Um people are like yeah we really appreciate it when uh I have you know I don't understand this particular thing I think someone raised an issue about live service monetization they never done that before but another studio had and they connected with each other and off they go right so
what investments are interesting today and I know I know the the investment in W4 partner the company to Godo what areas are interesting in that regard
to be honest I think the that's not an an area that I focus in necessarily um Uh my job is more about kind of once we get the folks through the door,
how do we get everyone to work better together? How do we make the studios the

best versions of themselves going forward? What do they need support from us and where do we frankly need to leave them alone and let them uh spend time to kind of figure it out themselves?
I'm often interested in the AI cultural differences that exist between
we can say east and west but it's actually it's more nuanced than that I think. Do you find for instance that uh companies in certain markets are far more open to using their technology than others?
You know, I was surprised at at this offsite. Um I think more people talked about kind of leveraging AI than I would have expected.
Oh, really?
They were certainly more open to it. I think they see the benefits. Um and again, it the AI
that they're uh that they're using is very much in tools that kind of are helping them scale up or do the things that they didn't want to do anyway. um you know all the way from like concept art development which I think is very common to um uh motion matching like with faces and uh and mocap or um automated rigging or code review like

things that are taking up time to be away from being creative. I think that ultimately is and and I think they they recognize that they're like, "Hey, I have more time to iterate to create better content or in some cases to create more content. Um, and uh so look, our studios are kind of in different phases of like how much tooling that they that they use, but the more they speak with one another and we'll try to uh to um share to to kind of uh have people share across their learnings as well." Like if a studio is like, "Hey, I had a big hit doing this particular thing in my pipeline." We're like, you know, can you write that up and we can share it as a white paper or have you guys do a talk and people do some Q&A? Like those are the types of things we we're trying to foster
in the challenging market at the moment. People trying to get cost down, people turning to AI, people turning to different distribution ways of how they make games with smaller teams and outsourcing or or you've got some of those outsourced teams within your portfolio. Has there been much change in how you're sort of advising your teams

to sort of work and operate?
Yeah, so I think a couple things. One is um you look at Tencent's portfolio, a lot of our games are uh evergreen live service titles and that helps with kind of the ups and downs of the industry. If you are, you know, constantly connected with your community, um you have a very stable audience and I think your workforce has the ability to be more stable as well. Um and at the end of the day, we're trying to make great games. Um there are situations where it's more risky. some teams are in concept phase or early pre-production. I think the more the the lesson we've learned is just like when the riskier part of the project should be kind of uh we should really cut down to the core of the team like what's the the secret sauce of that team. It could be five people, 20 people, 75 people, whatever that may look like, that group that should stay together. And then as we scale and scope, we get past, hey, this is the creative nugget is all proven out. we're getting into production, that's when we scale. And sometimes we'll scale with uh

internal dev teams and more and more I think we're honestly looking at outsourced teams as that ability for for folks to to scale up.
Okay, we're hearing that a lot. I mean, Sumo was talking about that as well.
Interesting. When this interview was pitched to me, the pitch was surprisingly around like trans media and Hollywood and um when I was
I do live in LA so that's
I was a bit surprised cuz and I know that some of your studios do thing you know bring games and expand them out into movies and TV show. Is it a big focus for you or is that was that just a strange pitch?
So I looked into it uh and the reason is I live in LA and there's not a lot of our folks that live in LA that that can cover this. Um, but we have a team in LA that actually owns a number of IPs including Conan the Barbarian and I got connected to them and at the time they were looking for linear media opportunities and now you know we've announced uh the Amazon series with Gendi that Amazon's kind of putting putting forth.
Um, and so for me it it kind of sparked a moment of hey this you know our

studios are creating great IPs. Some of them already have great IPs, um, like Warframe, like, uh, Path of Exile. Um, but at the end of the day, they're still quite niche. Um, they're not as big of an [clears throat] audience as they could be telling. And, and I think for us, uh, as Tencent, a lot of what we focus on has has been gameplay. And so, we're like, hey, is there an opportunity to for us to partner with storytellers to make the IPs resonate more with a broader audience? Um the challenge there I think one it's got to be authentic and two the storytellers we find the best opportunities with storytellers that really engage with that IP so they they can tell the story from their perspective. So
so it is a proactive thing that you're
it it is it and and we to be honest we call it kind of change under the couch cuz it's uh it's not something that the studios necessarily need to be focused on. It's more we bring them the opportunities and obviously we don't do anything without the their their consent

but it's it's more like Hollywood it's such a different place to navigate that and it's so uh foreign personally for myself before I started kind of going into this and for our studios as well so that it's like it's not a skill you need to pick up. we'll find you the opportunities and we'll make sure that you know the deals are signed properly and things like that and you get the control that you need as you're kind of going through these things and it's not just on um film and TV we're looking at you know that particular group also does like comic books and statues and all these opportunities that's like hey when someone and and again with a life service game or with a with a evergreen IP
people want it as a as a form of lifestyle so you know they want the thing behind them in their Zoom meeting to show that they are a fan of Conan or Warframe or whatever that IP might be.
So whenever I I have these conversations, people set it up go what's the future of this or where's that side of the industry going? Are we aren't we sort of at the peak of it in a way? I don't mean like it's going to go down after this, but peak of the games to film games film and TV because Mario

doing billions dollars twice. You've got hit TV shows Last of Us and Fallout. I'm not saying there's not more success to be found, but I when people talk about what's next, I wonder isn't isn't this okay? You know, I don't know if you've got any sort of thoughts of where it's heading,
where it's headed. I I think it for at least from internally, I'm not I'm not going to say outside of Tensent, but for me, it is a big opportunity. Um, like I, you know, IPs are so important and they need to be managed very carefully and thought about holistically. It's not I think back in the day, you know, when Mario started, it was probably just a game and continues to be or for them for a long time continued to be just a game. Now it's like I said, it's lifestyle. And you look at integration of IPs into short form video, Instagram, Tik Tok, like all these things. It's not just in one place. It's kind of
how do you engage with that across the board? And um one example, you know, we were talking about kids earlier, like I would say 90% of my son's clothing has

some form of a superhero or something on it. You know what I mean? So
yeah, I've got the same.
Yeah.
I'll ask about quickly ask about platforms because one of the conversations that going around here at Gamescom is is around console and where that sector's heading. Are you worried about that because of the the rising prices and the falling sales of that sector? Does that concern you as a sort of game? It's it's an interesting question because I think if you ask me that two years ago like I think when I came into Tencent a lot of our focus was actually PC first and that was before this whole this whole conversation and for us it wasn't actually because console was a lesser platform. It was more that PC was a more developer friendly platform and for us because we're uh most of our studios are innovating on gameplay we felt like it was less risky to to kind of do the PC early access experience. Um, and that was kind of a better experience for a lot of people. It gave the our studios kind of more comfort when it got to 1.0. Um, we've recently kind of actually refocused and said, "No, a lot of our

games we feel like are good enough and they should kind of go everywhere um everywhere uh on every platform that that people can engage on." So, I think we're going to continue to make games regardless of, you know, where the plat where the platforms go. I think yes. So certainly if if they get to the thousand mark, which I guess the Steam Machine has, but um it it's going to it's going to hurt, but also more and more you'll see kind of backwards compatibility, right? Like there are so many PS4s, PS5s already in the world and um you know, Switch Switch 2 kind of backwards compatible as well. Like I think that
I'm sure the console makers are looking at that. So
I'm also look we can see they're looking at ways of increasing margins elsewhere so maybe they can take more of a hit on the hardware. And
I do hope that the component crisis might be a temporary one and
Yeah. Yeah.
kind of thing. But I think for me it's is interesting about what the next generation's doing. You know, are they are they interested in the boxes under the TV? I think they might be, but we need to give them a reason reason to play them. I think
I mean there was a period of time where

people were like, "Oh, everyone's going to go on mobile and still that still hasn't happened cuz there's something magical about that big screen that
was there was time PC was dead." Then one of the things I've said on the show a few times is that you know cinema was dead and then this year look at it it's back to 2019 levels and it's uh that's right
it's um it turns out
but it all comes down to the content right I know right yeah without like an Odyssey or Spider-Man like yeah you're probably back to you know a few years ago
well and that's the key thing I mean it's not just I mean there are smaller films I say smaller like project harries and heights and weird stuff
back rooms
yeah back rooms oh it's going into horror stuff yeah and um Toy Story and all that stuff but The thing is, the key thing about them, there's big films, small films, weird films,
and they're interesting films. If you give people stuff to go to the cinema for, they'll go to the cinema. And I think it's the same true of console and mobile and PC and anything really. Um, yeah, there may be trends, but you know, people come out for good stuff. And that's my I've said that a few times.
And I think the other thing is, um, with advent of AI, you know, you don't know

where the next core hit is going to come from. And it could be something console specific because someone had a vision that now with AI tooling they can actually build it with two people or three people and kind of go to market. Right. So
um I'll ask one more question which is where do you see sort of what you're doing and 10 cent games in 5 years? Where would you like where would you like to be?
Well we've got um we've got some games coming out this year. Um and we've got a a big slate of games coming out next year that I'm really excited about. Uh unfortunately I don't think I can talk about a lot of them. Um, and for me it's about, you know, bringing the opportunity of our content makers to the world and and helping them uh fulfill their dreams and continuing to fuel fuel them on that side and then, you know, bringing our players more joy by uh bring cool games. Like it's it's it's I don't know. It's it sounds cheesy, but at the end of the day, like I'm in this industry cuz it's fun.
Yeah. I I like though what you said earlier around this idea of from software's journey from being making very niche things to niche but quite big things to me mega mainstream hit

the biggest games of the year
and Larian doing the same thing and you're going well I I guess maybe maybe in 5 years or maybe longer there might be a few of your other studios that have taken that similar trajectory
100%. That's quite it's it's a nice idea. You know, you're thinking multiple games ahead and yeah, as long as they're heading in the right direction, I guess.
And and look, part of our job is to help um not steer them in the right direction, but help kind of make sure they don't head down the wrong paths because we see a lot of other studios and we know kind of what doesn't work, right? So,
and that's the reason why I'm surprised you don't get more you're not more hands-on because of that vast knowledge that you must have from from well, you know, just you work on so many projects across so many studios in so many different markets.
But I think all games are unique and I do think there are certain things that are applicable across games and other things that are really unique to that game and um and it's really hard to tell until it happens. So, I think the the other thing I will say that that we do a lot with our developers is testing. Like

we're I don't think we're very shy about sharing our games with early community, small community uh influencers. Like that that I I will say is one thing I've learned coming to Tencent as well.
Yeah, that's a big thing in the industry. Well, thank you so much for your time and good luck with all your launches in a in a somewhat busy year. [laughter]
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you to Yong Yi Zoo there. Now, I did that interview before the Warogs bulkhead interview. we published two weeks back which was a gaming studio that Tencent had but later dropped. I would love to have asked them about that particularly as Joe Bulkhead said that Warogs would not have been possible without Tencent support but unfortunately the success of War Dogs happened after our interview. Anyway, that is all from us today. We will have more news, analysis, insight and interviews in the days and weeks ahead. If you want to make sure you don't miss an episode, you can just subscribe to us and we you can do it for free. Go to the gamebus.com, put in your email address and there you are. You're part of the family. But that's it from us today. Until next time, thank you for tuning in.