If you follow the games industry, you hear about a lot of buyouts. Companies buy each other all the time, but typically it’s within the same industry. Game developers buy other game developers. Maybe a big entertainment company acquires a major publisher. But this one is pretty weird.
Hongda Mining Co Ltd., a Chinese organization which produces iron and copper products, is in talks to purchase Jagex, the English developer behind RuneScape. This report comes via financial news site, DealStreetAsia. In a statement issued to Eurogamer and others, a company spokesperson said ”Jagex has entered into a non-exclusive, non-binding arrangement for a potential acquisition. The negotiations surrounding the acquisition are ongoing and it remains very much business as usual for the Company.”
In an official post on the RuneScape forums, the company said ”Jagex is in early stage discussions with the firm in question, but we must stress that they may – or may not – materialise into anything. However, should they come to fruition, it would potentially allow us access to the Asian marketplace to a high level.”
While the notion of a mining company expanding into video games is a crazy one, China is a massive market with particular interest in the free-to-play space, and I guess it’s just a matter of the right investors with the right amount of capital coming along for a company like Jagex to try and expand.
