Last week, Chinese publisher and tools outfit Chukong Technologies postponed its planned US IPO.
Since then more details have emerged.
In an internal email, CEO Chen Haozhi is reported as saying the problem was the combined valuation of two parts of the company: the game development and publishing side, which is profitable, and the cross-platform Cocos2d-x tools division, which has almost no revenue.
Amazon's big move
In terms of game development business, he said Chukong had surpassed local rival CMGE, valuing this activity at $670 million.
More significantly, he revealed that Amazon tried to buy the tools business for $600 million - a deal Chukong rejected.
This is a surprise, although given Amazon's push into gaming - both in terms of mobile and tablet devices, and now its new Fire TV box - there would be some logic behind it making such a move.
Yet, Cocos2d-x is a 2D-only engine which has the majority of its success in Asia, while Amazon's devices concentrated in the US so there's also a disconnect between the two.
As for Chukong's IPO, Chen Haozhi said it was all about the market meeting his view in terms of total valuation.
"Two part of the business added up to $1.3 billion company value. But we are defined as game company and the profits are underestimated," he said.