Back in December, the Planet Moon Studios game studio was busy on a big project. During the holidays, the project went kaput, as promised funding fell apart. Planet Moon sued to get its money, but it had to lay off a bunch of workers.
Luckily, an ambitious German game publisher scooped up all of the employees. Bigpoint said today it hired 37 former Planet Moon developers, doubling the size of Bigpoint&'s San Francisco game studio in one fell swoop. This kind of deal isn&'t unusual. As traditional game makers find the post-recession environment to be a tough one, online game companies are often coming to the rescue with deals that will keep the developers pumping out online games.
A year ago, Bigpoint opened its San Francisco office as part of a plan to get big in the U.S. Bigpoint has lots of consumers playing its online free-to-play games in Europe and Asia. But it&'s trying to crack the North American game market, said Heiko Hubertz, chief executive and founder of Bigpoint, which is based in Hamburg, Germany.
Planet Moon was founded in 1997 by the Shiny Entertainment team that created MDK. It also created critically acclaimed games such as Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Armed &' Dangerous, Infected, Smarty Pants, and Drawn to Life: the Next Chapter. It most recently created the Tangled game for Disney. Aaron Loeb, chief executive of Planet Moon, said his company is planning litigation against its former partner, but he is happy so many of Planet Moon&'s colleagues found jobs.Worldwide, Bigpoint has more than 165 million registered users for its games and it has 700 employees in Germany. Among its hits is Ruined, pictured at top.
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Companies: Bigpoint, Disney, Planet Moon Studios
People: Aaron Loeb, Heiko Hubertz
Companies: Bigpoint, Disney, Planet Moon Studios
People: Aaron Loeb, Heiko Hubertz
Dean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
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