Sony, Tencent invest in ‘Elden Ring’ developer

Sony now owns 14.1%, and Tencent owns 16.3%, of the Dark Souls and Elden Ring developer.

Kadokawa Corporation, owners of FromSoftware, the developers behind Elden Ring, announced that significant stock shares have been issued to Tencent and Sony. It is the latest in a string of investments and acquisitions by big corporations.

The Elden Ring developers just got a big boost in funding. Tencent (through a subsidiary company named Sixjoy) and Sony Interactive Entertainment purchased stock in FromSoftware. The purchases were made to the tune of $120,000 AUD per share — and for approximately 1700 shares for Tencent, that’s nearly $205 million AUD. If that sounds like a lot, it’s because the deal was made using a Japanese stock method known as ‘third-party allotment.’

Third-party allotments differ from public offerings in that they are primarily used to form a capital-based relationship between businesses, often for the sake of collaboration (or in some cases, rehabilitation.) In short, this was intentional to raise funding for FromSoftware, on the prospect that future projects from the game studio will return higher dividends for the investors.

Elden Ring is a harsh game, featuring a world that demands your attention. Picture: FromSoftware

Essentially, this means that Sony now owns 14.1%, and Tencent (through Sixjoy) owns 16.3% of FromSoftware. Kadokawa Corp. will still retain majority ownership, with 69.66%. Despite this investment from Sony, who sells the PlayStation line of consoles, FromSoftware has declared via a press release that “Going forward, there will be no change in our originality and autonomy with regards to the planning and development of games, communication with users, or platform selection.”

The company continued, stating that “with this funding, we will invest more aggressively in our own game development than ever before, and through co-operation with both companies (in terms of technical support and development in the global market,) we will expand our capacity to deliver high-quality games to many users. “

It’s no surprise that FromSoftware is seeing big investments, however. FromSoftware’s critically acclaimed Elden Ring shattered records, with a global sales number sitting near 17 million units shipped. The Dark Souls franchise has reached over 27 million sales according to a press release from 2020, and FromSoftware has a library of games with cult followings, such as Armored Core, Kuon, Metal Wolf Chaos, and more.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.