Reuters reports that Chinese media entertainment and tech conglomerate Tencent is shutting down its Penguin Esports subdivision by early June. Word is: "Tencent said on Thursday that Penguin Esports had stopped taking new users or live-streaming hosts and had also blocked existing users from topping up their accounts with immediate effect. The app will be removed from all app stores and will stop operating by June 7, it added." Tencent's decision to shutter this Twitch-like service in China is chalked up to changes in its business strategy. However, the article notes that regulatory crackdowns by the Chinese government have made the environment for such a service increasingly unwelcome:

The company said on its official WeChat account that the decision to shut down the six-year-old platform, where hosts could live-stream themselves playing games in a model similar to Amazon's Twitch, was made because of "changes to its business development strategy". It did not elaborate.

Beijing last year blocked the company's attempt to create a $10 billion videogame streaming behemoth through the merger of the market's top two players Huya and DouYu on antitrust grounds. Huya said at the time it planned to merge Penguin Esports into the new entity.

A wide-ranging Chinese regulatory crackdown has targeted tech giants over the last year and a half, forcing them to revamp once common market practices and driving Tencent and peer Alibaba Group to draw up layoffs plans, Reuters has reported. read more.