Tencent buys stake in Yooka-Laylee studio Playtonic Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Tencent buys stake in Yooka-Laylee studio Playtonic "Things are going to get Bat Ship Crazy over the next few years!" News by Tom Phillips Deputy Editor Published on 18 Nov 2021 11 comments Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent has bought a minority stake in Playtonic, the Derby-based developer behind Yooka-Laylee. Playtonic has not disclosed how much of the company it had sold, but confirmed it still retained ownership of its IP. The money will be spent on scaling up the business from its current single-team structure to multiple teams, hiring diverse talent, improving its office and exploring an expansion to other locations, Playtonic said. Watch on YouTube There's an update too on Playtonic Friends, the developer's indie game publishing program which it launched back in February. Its first title, Demon Turf, arrived in March. A new head of publishing has been hired - Danny Spiteri, formerly of Raw Fury and Team 17 - to allow the initiative's "ship to be steadied and captained to new ports" and "free up" studio head Gavin Price and executive producer Andy Wilson to focus fully on development again. "With Tencent's help we can scale up and fast-track the super-exciting, super-secret projects we've been keeping close to our treasure chests too," Price said in a press release today. "Things are going to get Bat Ship Crazy over the next few years! Please imagine a wink emoji right now." Sadly, there's no news today on what Playtonic's internal development team is up to - although Eurogamer was given a couple of hints earlier this year. "There's always going to some things which I'd say are a natural crowd-pleaser for our fans, but it'd also be great to start surprising them with something unexpected as well," Price told me back in the spring. "One game we're thinking about doing we're like, wow, this game would be great to have announced two years before launch and within that two years there's actually scope to keep doing lots and lots of cool surprises within those two years. The fact it might be known about for a while could be right. "And then there's another game which is just like 'wow, it would be great if we could just say nothing, and then one day push a launch button... tada!' It could totally spectacularly backfire, you just never know." Back in July, Tencent bought fellow UK studio Sumo Digital outright, in a deal worth £919m. Tencent's influence within the video games industry has grown rapidly over the past few years, with investment in Ubisoft, Epic Games, Remedy, Sumo, Marvelous, Dontnod, Klei, Platinum, Bohemia Interactive, Roblox and Krafton, plus ownership of Funcom, Sharkmob, Riot Games and its own enormous Timi Studios, the developer behind smartphone titans Call of Duty Mobile and the Pokémon Unite. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More News Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks less than a fortnight after Stadia shutdown GeForce Now preinstalled. 4 Atari will hold RollerCoaster Tycoon rights for another decade Ups and downs. 7 Lady Dimitrescu will be a tad smaller in Resident Evil Village's Mercenaries DLC Level the playing field. 1 Overwatch 2 suffers another DDoS attack and character roster bugs Mei Mei. 13 Latest Articles Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks less than a fortnight after Stadia shutdown GeForce Now preinstalled. 4 Genshin Impact Path of Gleaming Jade dates, login event rewards Including other anniversary rewards and how to claim them. Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store