by Stacy Jones on Sep 12, 2011
Bigpoint has added the entire development team of 49Games to its house of developers. In today's press release, Bigpoint announced that they have only acquired the 49Games development team and that the rights to the developer's multiplatform technology, assets and licenses will remain with 49Games.The team was previously tasked with developing several console-based sports titles, but under Bigpoint, the 43 newly added developers will transition to developing online Unity 3D-based games.
Bigpoint has experienced some success in recent months with the latest being the achieved five million registered player milestone for their sci-fi MMOG Battlestar Galactica Online. This is the fourth major acquisition by Bigpoint in the last 18 months and Bigpoint CEO Heiko Hubertz indicates in the press release that more will be made in the future.
Bigpoint takes over the entire development team of 49Games GmbH
Renowned studio for sports-entertainment software sells its entire development team to Bigpoint
43 workers switch to a new employer and will be developing online games instead of console titles
Fourth Bigpoint takeover in the past 18 months
Hamburg September 12, 2011 Bigpoint, an international leader in online games, is immediately taking over the entire production team of the internationally successful development studio 49Games. More than 40 full-time employees will now become part of Bigpoints international team and will be developing online games instead of console titles. The current projects under development in 49Games will be completed by the production team. Aside from the production team, all rights to their multiplatform technology, assets, licenses etc. remain the property of 49Games GmbH.
Bigpoint will concentrate solely on the development of online and mobile games in the future. The veteran expertise of the recently taken-over developers will be put to use on upcoming Unity 3D projects.
The team at 49Games is one of the best development teams in the console sports-games industry. Were very excited to add them to the Bigpoint team for our online games, explains Heiko Hubertz, CEO and founder of Bigpoint. Together with our development team, were going to continue our mission to deliver our users top-quality gaming fun.
Im very pleased with Bigpoints acquisition of our development team and Im confident that the team will deliver fantastic 3D MMOs for the quickly growing international online company, claims Jan-Hendrik Ohl, CEO of 49Games GmbH.
After the takeover and merger of Radon Labs and Elofd in Berlin last year and the purchase of Planet Moon Studios at the start of 2011, this is the fourth takeover for the worlds largest browser-based online game provider Bigpoint.
We plan on expanding, states so Heiko Hubertz, and so were still on the lookout for other excellent studios like 49 Games. In the future, were definitely going to make more international acquisitions.
The 49Games GmbH one of the leading development studios in Europe
The Hamburg-based game development studio, 49Games, is the leading independent development studio of console-sports games in Europe. The company spun off from the VCC entertainment company in 2004 and has developed 18 multi-platform sports titles since. These titles were published for the XBox 360, Wii, PS3, PS2 and PC. The studios team is composed of 45 full-time developers who have developed the beloved games: Winter Stars, Winter Sports 2011 Go for Gold, Summer Challenge 2010, RTL Wintersports 2010 and many other top titles.
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About Bigpoint
Bigpoint (http://www.bigpoint.com) is an online-game developer, publisher and content provider for large media concerns. Bigpoint-developed games are played by over 200 million people in more than 25 languages, are free-to-play anytime, anywhere, and require no download or installation. The companys portfolio includes games in a quality which until now was associated exclusively with CD or console games. Over 700 employees from some 35 countries work at the worlds largest supplier of browser-based games; at the company headquarters in Hamburg, Germany or at one of the other locations in Berlin, San Francisco, São Paulo and Malta. Bigpoints many distinctions in the industry include the 2010 Media Momentum Award, the European Games Award, the Mashable Award for Best Online Game and the coveted Lara Award. The German Developers Prize 2010 went to Bigpoint in three separate categories.