Tencent, owners of Riot Games, gets on US military blacklist and China has a hand in the decision
Tencent does not give credit for being accused of collaborating with the Chinese military.
We’re only a few days into 2025, but the video game industry is already giving us its first controversies of the year. On top of the whole Nintendo Switch 2 massive leak thing, news broke yesterday that Tencent, the industry’s largest China-based conglomerate, has been blacklisted in the US. The reason? One that made the company’s leadership pretty angry.
According to Bloomberg, the U.S. government has placed the company that owns Riot Games (League of Legends) on its “blacklist” for alleged ties to China’s military. While this designation does not carry economic sanctions, it could discourage US companies from doing business with them. Tencent is therefore very upset about the situation.
Tencent defends itself against serious accusations
Hours after this came to light, the company issued an official statement claiming that this must be a misunderstanding, as they maintain that they have no ties to the Chinese military and do not contribute in any way to the country’s defense sector. In response, Tencent said that it intends to initiate a review process with the U.S. Department of Defense to clarify the situation and, if necessary, take legal action to remove its presence from the blacklist. Unfortunately for the company, they are already suffering the first consequences of this issue. The company’s shares have dropped 7% since the US statement. Will they be able to sort this out before it gets worse?
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