Chinese games billionaire dies after poisoning

CHINA – (WARSOOR) – A Chinese tycoon who died on Christmas Day was poisoned, Shanghai police said.

Lin Qi, 39, was the chairman and chief executive of games developer Yoozoo, best known for the Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming strategy game.

The Shanghai police statement pointed to one of Mr Lin’s colleagues – identified only by his surname Xu -as the main suspect.

Mr Lin was believed to have a net worth of around 6.8bn yuan (US$1bn, £780m), according to the Hurun China Rich List.

Many employees and ex-employees gathered outside the Yoozoo’s office on Friday to mourn his death.

The company also issued an emotional statement on its official Weibo microblog.

“Goodbye youth,” it said, adding “we will be together, continue to be kind, continue to believe in goodness, and continue the fight against all that is bad”.

The post attracted thousands of comments while the topic has been viewed more than 290 million times on Weibo.

Apart from its Game of Thrones game, Yoozoo is also the co-publisher of Supercell’s smash-hit game Brawl Stars along with China’s Tencent Holdings.

Three-body problem

The company is also known for its connection with the Chinese sci-fi novel Three-Body Problem as it holds the rights for its film adaptation.

But its expansion into the motion picture business wasn’t as successful as the company hoped and the project to adapt the book into six films by Yoozoo Pictures never took off.

In September, it granted US streaming platform Netflix the right to adapt the sci-fi novel for television.

The book is the first instalment of the trilogy Remembrance of Earth’s Past by writer Liu Cixin and has received critical acclaim, counting both former US President Barack Obama and Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg among its fans.