This is great but my fear is that one day he will go public and not share the profits with the employees. I worked at a company like that. Said they would never sell until they did for a record amount that they didn’t really share with the employees.
WarmSoda@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Larian Studios does technically have a single shareholder in Tencent—which owns around 30% of the company. However, an important piece of context is that Tencent appears to own what’s called a “preference” share, meaning that Tencent doesn’t have voting rights when it comes to Larian’s decision making. The rest of the company belongs to CEO and Founder Swen Vincke and his wife.
Interesting, did not know that.
RagingRobot@lemmy.world 8 months ago
pantyhosewimp@lemmynsfw.com 8 months ago
The US needs more mutual companies in general but it could work for a gaming company too.
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Few people do because Larian keeps lying about it. Part of me understands you don‘t go around telling people a Chinese government asset has big money in your company, given the ongoing genocide and all (speaking of toxic work environment eh) but it‘s publicly accessible information anyway. They‘ve been so consistently dishonest about it that I can‘t take them all that serious about anything anymore. Because alternatively to lying they could just… shut up and keep making great games. They don‘t need that sugar coating.
Wootz@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Did you not read the damn article?
Tencent own preference stock. They could sell their stock, which could potentially harm the company, but they carry no voting power and hold no decision making power.
I am not a fan of China, nor Tencent, but spewing bile without understanding the context does NOT help this discourse.
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 8 months ago
Can’t see how it would harm the company. Stocks and shares are just a way to raise money in a company. I’ll sell you x% for $yk and own that amount now.
Even with normal shares 30% is a minority stake especially if a single entity owns the other 70% (ie. You can express your opinion but I outvote you every time). Unless Larian are planning to raise additional funds by selling equity and need the stock price to remain high for that reason, Tencent are free to sell their portion without any impact to Larian. (Heck a drop might even let Larian buy itself back)
Dremor@lemmy.world 8 months ago
If Tencent sell its shares, it would make the share price plummet, which will make it harder for the studio to get money by selling new shares.
frezik@midwest.social 8 months ago
Shareholders have a right to sell their shares. If there is no other buyer, then the company will have to pay them for it. They may not have enough liquid capital to pay off 30%. Other assets might have to be sold off, which may make it difficult to operate.
Lojcs@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Could they even sell if nobody is buying?
nutsack@lemmy.world 8 months ago
if the company isn’t publicly traded they can’t always sell even if they want to
Zacryon@feddit.de 8 months ago
It would be bought. That’f how stocks work. If there is a promising company, there will be interested buyers.
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 8 months ago
Is your head full of mush?
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’s so irritating to see how eager people come to defend Larian on their lies every time someone calls it out. You’re acting like I said Tencent has Larian on the leash. I mean you’re not even disagreeing with anything I said. Tencent holds shares. They are shareholders, as the article states. Maybe read it again? Do you also claim Larian didn’t receive funding from Tencent? Because Larian was very vocal about not receiving any funding, playing dumb when people wondered how Larian even made such a huge game.
Rumors have it Hasbro’s gonna sell D&D and Tencent is the most likely buyer. We’ll see how much of Larian’s soul will be left when they get approached to make a huge D&D mobile gacha or whatever Tencent comes up with.
TJDetweiler@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
I’m getting whiplash from your logic. You just accused another user of acting like you said tencent had larian on a leash, which we can all agree is not true. Then you go on to say Larian is going to lose its soul when tencent approaches them with a gacha game, as if larian would take them up on this like Tencent has any say in what Larian does.
Also, Hasbro isn’t selling DnD. Tencent is attempting to buy adaptation rights to the DnD IP, which may not even be true. By all accounts, WotC is the most profitable division of Hasbro. Sounds like you read another headline and didn’t read the article…
forbes.com/…/dungeons--dragons-publisher-denies-s…