Thomas Hartwig, chief technology officer at King.
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Here’s why King gave away its 2D mobile game engine Defold

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

‘Tis the season of giving for game engines. King Digital Entertainment acquired the Defold game engine back in 2014 to make two-dimensional mobile titles. It enhanced the engine and published Blossom Blast Saga using Defold.

But the European game company, which Activision Blizzard recently acquired for $5.9 billion, has decided to release the engine for free to anyone else who wants to use it. King chief technology officer Thomas Hartwig explained why in an interview with GamesBeat at the Game Developers Conference last week.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.