David Jaffe turned down $100 million offer from Tencent due to his views on China
In recent months, we’ve been reporting quite extensively on Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent, who have been unstoppably snatching up shares in (or sometimes outright ownership of) a whole host of big gaming names.
Slowly but surely, their financial tendrils have spread, invading the likes of Ubisoft, Playtonic Games, Roblox, Sumo Digital and more. Opinion has been divided as to whether one company having so much sway over this large a portion of the industry is just ‘the done thing’ in the modern world of monopolies – hi, Disney – or something about which we should be utterly terrified. Think what you want to think; personally, I can see it both ways, and Tencent have certainly earned their success, shady or otherwise. What can’t be denied is that they’ve got the funds to chuck about, and when they came a-knockin’ with offers of millions upon millions of dollars, several smaller studios probably found themselves unable to refuse. I mean – would you? “Hey, here’s a $100 million cheque. No catch. All we need from you is eternal servitude.”
Tencent? Let them eat Jaffe cake
Well, turns out that might not be as irresistible a deal as it sounds. Video Games Chronicle reports that another famous face in gaming, David Jaffe, who’s behind the Twisted Metal games and the original God of War, came very close to joining the Tencent fold – but told them to sling their hook. The reason? Seems like it may have been more on principle than fiscally motivated. Speaking on the Sacred Symbols+ podcast, Jaffe discussed “how he felt uncomfortable dealing with the company after receiving an offer from it.”
Apparently, one day he was contacted on the phone by a prim and proper sounding Western businessman, acting on behalf of Tencent. Jaffe was able to see through the facade quite quickly, and felt manipulated. “I had a $100 million deal,” he claims. “I was courted by a Chinese company, and I said ‘no thank you’ because you’re Tencent and I want nothing to do with you. It was a Western guy that was calling me and I wasn’t trying to shame the guy. I hope he’s got thick enough skin, and he’s been an executive in the business way longer than I have, but I was just like ‘man, I don’t want to do business with a company like that, with a government like that.'”
When prodded by the podcast interviewer, Jaffe went on to elaborate on his political reasoning behind the refusal. “Stop killing people,” he said, somewhat bluntly. “Again, people will be like, ‘America’s hands aren’t clean’, and no they are not clean at all; but we’re also not, you know, we all have a system that if we actually gave a shit, we could change it.” Speaking from experience, the same holds true across the pond, Dave.
“In China, you just get picked up off the street if you go online and say something bad about the police or the government or anything; and who knows when they’ll see you again?” As if to pre-empt claims of him falsifying his story – which, it turned out, some commenters indeed levelled at him – Jaffe went on to prepare a copy of the original communication between him and the Tencent rep. Check it out below:
Well, there you have it, folks. Simply waving a valuable cheque in someone’s face doesn’t always necessarily reap results. Sometimes a man’s morals become more important to him than money. As for your take on Jaffe’s take? Only you can decide that, because we live in a free society. Unlike some, am I right, Dave? Ahahahaha….haha… ha.
Let us know your thoughts on the ongoing Tencent conquest!
Via, Video Games Chronicle.
