As Chinese games continue to take off domestically, game development and tech conglomerates are reportedly reconsidering their investment in foreign markets. This has now resulted in the alleged shutdown of Ouka Studios, developer of Visions of Mana, which is seeing massive layoffs merely a day after the game was released.
According to a Bloomberg report from today, Aug. 30, Tencent and Ouka Studios owner NetEase are allegedly “reconsidering or scaling back many of their investments in Japanese studios.” The Tokyo-based developer only retains a “handful of jobs” at the moment, supposedly so the “rollout of its final games” can be completed before the studio shuts down entirely. Visions of Mana has been well-received by the community, sporting thousands of players and nearly 90 percent positive reviews on Steam.
Tencent is also questioning the “pace and scale of investments” in Japan at the moment, according to Bloomberg. Sources told the outlet that one of the biggest video game companies in the world has pulled funding from “at least several” new titles. All of this stems from alleged frustrations Tencent has had with Japanese partners and the reported “mismatch in ambition” between companies in the two countries.
Ouka Studios has only been running since 2020, and seems to have already met its end at the hands of an increasingly incorporated video game industry.
Chinese video game giants might also have been influenced in their decisions by the recent breakout domestic success of Black Myth: Wukong, which has millions of players hopping in daily to take Wukong on a new journey to the west, most of whom hail straight from China itself. Tencent also plays a prominent role in the development of Western video games, especially live-service ones, and it will be quite a shake-up if the company were to increasingly leave those markets in favor of China.
