Julie Fowler, assisted by Sarah Yen and Sam Kaelin, has advised the shareholders of New Zealand’s largest game development studio, Grinding Gear Games, on the sale of a majority interest to Tencent, the world’s largest online games company.

Founded in 2006, Grinding Gear Games is known for the wildly successful competitive online role-playing video game, Path of Exile, which launched on Microsoft Windows in 2013 and on Xbox in 2017. The game is now published in eight languages.

Tencent is a tech powerhouse that provides numerous online products and services across social networking, e-commerce, entertainment and artificial intelligence. Tencent is based in China and is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Grinding Gear Games will continue to operate as an independent company and be led by its founders, who expect the company to benefit from access to Tencent’s vast global network. We are delighted to have been involved in a transaction that has had such a great outcome for Grinding Gear Games, its Kiwi founders and the continued growth of the NZ gaming sector.