Hounded At Home, China's Video Game Firms Welcomed In Europe

China is investing billions in Europe's video game industry, but analysts have warned that there could be trouble along the road unless regulators start to take stricter notice. Europe is embroiled in long-running disputes with Beijing over trade, environment, education, raw materials, intellectual property -- but so far video games are not part of the fight. As Beijing tightens up on the video game industry at home, China's tech giants are looking to make investments overseas -- prompting concerns ranging from data security to limits on creative freedom. "Europe has this idea that we will be able to separate strategic industries from non-strategic industries," Antonia Hmaidi from the Mercator Institute think-tank told AFP. "Video games for most policymakers will always go into the non-strategic pile." This has helped Tencent, the world's largest games company by revenue, to buy into studios across Europe -- including the then world-record $8.6 billion deal for Finnish firm Supercell in 2016.