Google is participating in an investment in a Chinese gaming company, according to Reuters, a move potentially signaling that the company is trying to do whatever it takes to penetrate the highly protected and massive market.
Along with helping Chushou, the online video game platform, to expand its service, Google’s financial contribution will bring the startup’s total funding to $120 million, Reuters reports.
Chushou has become a well-liked and fairly successful firm only years after it was founded in 2015. One of its premiere features are the livestreaming capabilities in which users can broadcast their experience to the public — something that is quite popular in the larger gaming community due to coinciding viewing enjoyment.
Being a tech conglomerate with stakes in diverse set of industries, Google is likely interested in the platform due to its popularity, as well as the ostensible rise in popularity for livestream e-gaming. Perhaps more notably, Google has long sought to gain entry into China with its vast amount of services in order to capitalize on by far the world’s largest human market.
Google, for example, withdrew from China in response to a string of cyberattacks and concerns over free speech. But before it did so, the company actively censored search results for Chinese users at the request of the country’s government for several years.
“We concluded that although we weren’t wild about the restrictions it was even worse to not try to serve those users at all,” then-CEO, and now-parent company CEO Eric Schmidt explained in 2006, when the company first entered China. (RELATED: Why Is Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt Technically Serving In The Department Of Defense?)
Google leaders have since indicated a desire to return to China, which has paternalistic policies when it comes to domestic businesses. “We left in 2010 because they had strict rules on censorship,” Schmidt told USA Today around 18 months ago. “We keep trying. I spend a lot of time trying to reopen it.”
“We want to be in China serving Chinese users,” he added without indicating what concessions the company might make to return to China.
So it seems that regardless if it will ultimately be successful in getting its search engine, one of its most prized services, into China, Google will continue to try other means.
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