Codemasters Acquires Swordfish.
To Launch New Birmingham-Based Studio
Birmingham Studio to be led by Swordfish Founder Trevor Williams.
Ed’s Note: Codemasters are not shy about acquiring good studios. Judging by the number of studios they have begun to acquire over the last year or so, one can see yet another major publishing house with a solid repitation helping out the smaller fry within the industry. Especially in these harder economic times.
So it is encouraging to see a studio like Swordfish become part of the Codemasters Publishing and Development House, and following the more modern trend of allowing these studios to retain the anoniminity as a studio and build the games they have become known for. This only helps the industry, not weakens it.
Gone are the days when a publisher acquired a development studio then gobbled it up internally, retaining the name, but none of it staff. Which is what makes a development studio, not the name.
17th November 2008- Facilitating an accelerated expansion of its development talent base, Codemasters® today announced it has reached an agreement with Activision Vivendi to take over Swordfish Studios, the Birmingham-based games development house. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The deal brings immediate additional resource to Codemasters’ development operations. Under the terms of the agreement Swordfish Studio’s development team will be integrated and managed as part of Codemasters’ network of studios. Trevor Williams, founder and managing director of Swordfish Studios, will continue to lead the studio reporting to Gavin Cheshire, VP, Codemasters Studios.
Carrying the Codemasters Studios imprint, the studio will create original content using the company’s proprietary EGO Engine, the technology behind racing hits Colin McRae: DiRT and Race Driver: GRID and is currently powering the highly-anticipated Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.
“We are committed to growing our studio operations across multiple facilities and increasing the internal capability of Codemasters’ creative resource,” said Gavin Cheshire, VP, Codemasters Studios. “There is a strong heritage and a compatible skill set, which has enabled us to fast track growth plans and allows for ease of management. Codemasters has ramped up as a UK games development powerhouse with a scalable support infrastructure that allows for rapid deployment of the highly versatile EGO Engine.”
With a 15-year heritage, Swordfish is a past recipient of Best UK Studio in the Develop Industry Excellence Awards and Best Company in the TIGA Awards. Swordfish and Codemasters have partnered previously for the development of hit sports titles Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 and Jonah Lomu Rugby. Most recently Swordfish led the creation of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand for Vivendi.
Atari Australia is the exclusive distributor of Codemasters games in Australia and New Zealand.
For more information on Atari’s entire product line-up please visit www.atari.com.au
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Filed under: Console gaming, Industry News, New Game Information, Press Release, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 3rd Party Games, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | 50 Cent blood in the sand, Atari, Codemasters, Opperation falshpoint: dragon rising, Swordfish studios
