The massive Chinese gaming company Tencent is planning a worldwide launch for its PC gaming platform, WeGame, according to the South China Morning Post.
Tencent made the announcement this past Friday that a global version of the platform is currently in the works out of Hong Kong, after WeGame’s initial launch in September of last year.
“The Hong Kong version of WeGame is now under development,” a Tencent spokesperson said. “This version will be available for overseas users, and we will use this platform to bring more Chinese games to the global market.”
WeGame is basically China’s version of Steam, a massive marketplace and distribution platform. It only currently offers around 200 games with a mix of both international and Chinese titles. While Tencent is massive in China, it does not quite hold as much weight on an international scale just yet.
Steam recently announced an upcoming Chinese client, so the showdown between Tencent and Steam was due to kick off in China. But now that rumble will continue on all over the world as well. There’s currently no official release date for Steam China or WeGame’s global release.
Expanding WeGame with a global release will mean yet another game launcher for PC players to have access to. Currently, companies like Blizzard, Epic Games, EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft, and Twitch all have game launchers and marketplaces where players can buy and play games from. With this announcement, Tencent believes that it will soon have just as big a stake in worldwide gaming in the near future.
Tencent are also the Chinese distributor for some of the biggest games out there, like PUBG and League of Legends. It is unclear how this expansion will affect those games.
H/T IGN
