{"id":100071,"date":"2019-09-12T15:29:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T15:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/350631"},"modified":"2019-09-12T15:29:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T15:29:00","slug":"scavengers-dev-midwinter-entertainment-acquired-by-improbable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/09\/12\/scavengers-dev-midwinter-entertainment-acquired-by-improbable\/","title":{"rendered":"Scavengers dev Midwinter Entertainment acquired by Improbable"},"content":{"rendered":"

SpatialOS-maker Improbable has acquired Midwinter Entertainment ahead of the release of the fledgling studio\u2019s first game, an online team-based title called Scavengers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The cost of the acquisition was not disclosed, but the deal sees Midwinter keeping creative independence after the acquisition and gains the company some additional support for Scavengers<\/em>. Improbable previously invested in the title around the time of the game\u2019s 2018 announcement.<\/p>\n

Improbable totes SpatialOS as a cloud-based platform that allows devs to create more expansive online worlds without the hefty computational work that more traditional methods of online game support would bring. Scavengers<\/em>, meanwhile, is already being developed with that tech, and studio founder Josh Holmes notes in a press release that signing on with the company makes it possible for the team to work more closely with Improbable\u2019s other studios and platform team throughout the remainder of the project.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a move that fleshes out Improbable\u2019s own internal game development efforts as well, a push that began just earlier this year<\/a>. That same press release notes that the acquisition marks the first time Improbable has acquired an established game dev studio, a move it says aims to show its commitment to advancing its tech and supporting the studios that have decided to include it in their games.<\/p>\n

The acquisition does come after a publicly rocky period for Improbable, however. While another SpatialOS-powered project, Seed<\/em>, has continued to rake in funding<\/a>, two other high profile SpatialOS games have shut down in recent memory.<\/p>\n

Worlds Adrift<\/em>, developed by Bossa Studios, was shut down in May<\/a> after two years in Early Access after its team said it was no longer commercially viable to keep it up and running. Two months later, developer Automation Games entered administration<\/a> and canceled its SpatialOS-powered 1000-person battle royale game Mavericks: Proving Grounds<\/em> due to insufficient funding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SpatialOS-maker Improbable has acquired Midwinter Entertainment ahead of the release of the fledgling studio\u2019s first game, an online team-based title called Scavengers. The cost of the acquisition was not disclosed, but the deal sees Midwinter keeping creative independence after the acquisition and gains the company some additional support for Scavengers. Improbable previously invested in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}