LogInVisions of Mana's developer will soon be shut down.
Chinese tech giants, Tencent and NetEase, are reportedly reconsidering their investment in the Japanese game market, planning to pull out of some of their engagements.
According to Bloomberg, NetEase has left only "a handful" of jobs at Ouka Studios, the developer of Visions of Mana, released only yesterday, and is planning to shut down the studio altogether. The remaining employees are said to oversee the release of its final games.
NetEase had "nothing to announce" concerning the closure of Ouka, but it apparently sees progress in the studios it has invested in.
"In supporting studios outside China, we craft our strategy based on our goal of providing better gaming experiences to local and global players," a NetEase spokesperson told Bloomberg. The company is "thus always making necessary adjustments to reflect market conditions."
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Tencent has also stepped away from several funding commitments for new games. In 2023, the company got the rights to develop and publish the mobile version of Bandai Namco's Blue Protocol, but the Japanese studio has recently announced the game's cancelation.
Tencent has reportedly been frustrated by the Japanese developers, "in part because of a mismatch in ambition between the Chinese firm and local partners," Bloomberg says. Local studios prefer smaller-scale projects, while Tencent went to Japan in search of big hits.
Tencent and NetEase decided to move from their home country's gamedev industry in favor of Japan's in 2020, but it seems the huge success of Black Myth: Wukong, which attracted over 2.2. million concurrent players on the launch day and even boosted tourism in China, made them look into their own game opportunities further.
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Both publishers say they will continue working with big partners like Capcom and Bandai Namco. But I'm afraid not every studio is as lucky.
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