On May 24, 2018, it was announced by Chinese
holding company Leyou that they had formed a new publishing division for PC and Consoles called Athlon Games, the company would be based in Los Angeles, California and would help co-publish games with other companies. In September 2018, Leyou had announced that they signed a deal with
Middle-earth Enterprises to allow the company to develop and publish an online
free-to-play game based on
The Lord of the Rings. Amazon Game Studios (a division within
Amazon) would join the project in July 2019, and would agree to co-develop and also publish the game globally, with Athlon set to publish the game in China and Taiwan. Later that year Athlon had announced that they had become the publisher of
Samurai Shodown excluding in Japan and China, while also becoming a shareholder of
LCG Entertainment, a company that had acquired the assets of
Telltale Games, while also announcing that they'd become the future co-publisher of all upcoming Telltale titles, starting with the release of
Batman: Shadows Edition in December 2019. In December 2020, it was announced by Leyou that they'd be acquired by
Tencent under their Image Frame Investment subsidiary. On April 17, 2021, after several years in development, Tencent and Amazon had announced that when they had been in contract negotiations for the planned
The Lord of the Rings game, a dispute had begun between the two, ultimately causing Amazon to cancel the planned title. == Games ==