News

Amazon offered us $600 million for Cocos2d-x, says Chukong CEO

Chinese outfit refused as it looks to IPO

Amazon offered us $600 million for Cocos2d-x, says Chukong CEO

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.


Tags:
Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.