A plaza in Avakin Life
A plaza in Avakin Life
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Tencent leads $25 million round for Avakin Life maker Lockwood Publishing

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

Tencent has led a $25 million investment in Lockwood Publishing, the maker of the 3D virtual world Avakin Life.

It’s a bet that makers of mobile games may have just as much chance of building a metaverse as PC or console platforms. The metaverse is a group of virtual worlds that are all interconnected, like in novels such as Snow Crash and Ready Player One. (VentureBeat’s next GamesBeat event on January 26-January 27 will focus in part on the metaverse).

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.