Tencent agrees to purchase Sonic & All-Stars Racing dev for $1.2 billion

Chinese mega corporation Tencent announced this week that it would acquire Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed developer Sumo Group for $1.26 billion.

According to the report, shares of Sumo rose more than 40 percent once news was announced.

“In the 18 years since we founded Sumo, we have developed more great games than we could ever have imagined and enjoyed incredible trust and support from our clients, enabling us to grow into a global business, delivering consistently strong financial results,” said Carl Cavers, Sumo’s CEO.

“Tencent intends to bring its expertise and resources to accelerate the growth of Sumo both in the U.K. and abroad, supporting Sumo in the market for top-tier creative talent, and the U.K. as a hub for game innovation,” said James Mitchell, chief strategy officer at Tencent.

Sumo is just the latest in a long line of acquisitions Tencent has made on its way to becoming the world’s largest game publisher. Tencent owns Riot Games, Supercell and holds a 40 percent stake in Epic Games, the report added.

Sumo, which was founded in 2003 and rose to prominence thanks to its work on several SEGA titles, like SEGA Superstars Tennis, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing and SASR: Transformed, to name a few. In the past few years, Sumo developed Team Sonic Racing and most recently released Hood: Outlaws & Legends this year.