Tencent Pledges $140 Million for Golden Spatula Esports

Tencent Games will invest 1 billion RMB ($140 million) over the next three years to develop Golden Spatula, its auto-battler game, and the esports ecosystem around it in China.

Huang Lingdong, Tencent Games vice president and head of Golden Spatula’s China operations, announced the investment at a strategy presentation in Xi’an. The event focused on an esports upgrade and the game’s planned PC launch.

The funding will support the game, its content, its player community and esports competitions. The total annual prize pool across Golden Spatula tournaments in 2027 will be twice the size of the 2026 pool.

A new annual championship will be held during the game’s anniversary celebration in 2027. It will have a 10 million RMB ($1.4 million) prize pool, including 3 million RMB ($420,000) for the winner.

The investment will also fund video creators, streamers and local tournament organisers. Tencent plans to offer millions of RMB in incentives for community-run competitions and university esports groups. The programme is intended to give regular players more opportunities to enter competitions.

Tencent has launched Prism Academy, a college esports brand for student players. The programme will provide tournament-organising tools and financial incentives for campus competitions. The number of in-person university tournaments is expected to rise from 100 to 300, allowing students to organise Golden Spatula events at their schools.

Golden Spatula has recorded more than 240 million registered users during its five years of operation and more than 50 million monthly active players, according to Tencent. Tournaments drew more than 10 million participant entries annually in 2025 and 2026.

Content related to the game received more than 270 billion views on Chinese social and video platforms. It reached more than 10 million views per hour at its peak in September 2026.

The presentation ended with Tencent executives and production staff lighting a ceremonial “Win-Streak Spatula” torch to open the 2027 esports season. Tencent has also discussed hosting CrossFire tournaments with the French government and was selected to provide technical infrastructure for the Asian Games in Japan.

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Reviewed and fact-checked by Alex Panasenko on November 9.