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Tencent will invest $15 million in Fortnite's rollout in China

Seeding an esports community for Epic's game will be a focus of the investment

Tencent has pledged to invest more than $15 million to ensure that Fortnite is a success in China.

At a press conference yesterday, Tencent officially launched Fortnite in China, and said it will back Epic's game with ¥100 million ($15.8 million).

According to Do News, which attended the press conference, half of that ¥100 million will be used to create content for the game and support video content creators. The other half will be used to push it as an esport.

Last year, Tencent laid out an ambitious plan to build a ¥100 billion esports industry in China by 2022. In that context, the money behind Fortnite is a small investment, but it could be hugely significant for Epic's game - which Tencent said now has 45 million users.

Tencent owns 40% of Epic Games, since it raised its stake in the company back in March 2013. Notably, it is also the Chinese publisher for Fortnite's biggest rival in the battle royale genre, PlayerUknown's Battlegrounds.

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Matthew Handrahan

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Matthew Handrahan joined GamesIndustry in 2011, bringing long-form feature-writing experience to the team as well as a deep understanding of the video game development business. He previously spent more than five years at award-winning magazine gamesTM.