By Brenda Goh

SHANGHAI (Reuters). Tencent Holdings in China (OTC) hopes Beijing will permit’metaverse” virtual environments services to exist in China. The Chinese company is based in Shanghai.

Tencent (China’s most valuable company, by market capital), welcomed potential gaming business opportunities during a Wednesday post-earnings conference. However, it acknowledged that China’s metaverse will need to differ from the rest.

Martin Lau, Tencent’s president and CEO said that there are many technologies related to developing games. He also spoke out about questions regarding the metaverse.

Ever since Mark Zuckerberg announced his intention to dedicate the future of Facebook (NASDAQ) to creating a metaverse, investors have been examining the possibilities for the emerging virtual reality world.

Microsoft (NASDAQ 🙂 and Disney also stated they are working together on metaverses.

Tencent’s Lau stated that the Chinese government would support the development of these technologies, provided the regulation framework is followed.

Tech investors have raised questions among themselves about what the metaverse might look like in China. Since last year, China’s internet has been tightly censored. Authorities have also launched an aggressive crackdown on Tencent and other giants.

Crypto transactions were banned, gaming companies have increased their oversight and “blind” investments in metaverse stocks have been warned.

Lau stated that although China would likely have different rules regarding the metaverse than the rest of the world, it was not fundamentally opposed to the creation of metaverse.

Tencent, China’s biggest online gaming business by revenue, leads the charge on virtual worlds in China, according to NewZoo.

Lau stated that there are “multiple paths” to this metaverse opportunity. These include interactive games and a social network acting as a gamefield.

He stated that “we have lots of technology and capability building blocks which will allow us access to the metaverse possibility.”

Epic Games is owned by 40% of Tencent, and Roblox Corp has joined forces with it. Both companies are currently working to create their own metaverses.

This company also owns WeChat in China, China’s most popular social network and messaging app. It has registered more than 20 metaverse-related trademarks and is currently working to create immersive multi-player games.