This is my first post here, so excuse me if this has already been debated to death.
I've gone down a rabbit hole of research on what companies Tencent owns a partial stake in (seemingly required for IPs to do business in China) and I've come across a bunch of articles describing EA and Respawn being in talk with Tencent to bring APEX Legends to China.
WE ALL KNOW EA is going to try and make a buck wherever, whenever and however they can, regardless of moral implications. See their monetization of loot boxes/gambling mechanics and blatant price gouging in Battlefront II as examples. If EA is getting into business with Tencent, how long will it be until we have another violation of free speech a la Blizzard and their Hearthstone champion who spoke out in support of Hong Kong, and against China's actions there?
Does anyone know or have a resource to find out how much (if any) a stake Tencent holds in either Respawn Entertainment and/or EA? As far as I know, it's mostly required of foreign owned companies to allow a Chinese government owned company to invest a minority stake in it if that foreign owned company wants to do business in China at all. Is that the case here?
I see this as extremely worrisome. EA reportedly sees China as the 3rd largest market for growth; China has the second largest economy in the world, and its players spend comparatively more than Japanese players, who is one of the most lucrative markets in gaming.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/dirbjt/with_ea_in_talks_with_tencent_to_bring_apex/