Fortis' team in Brazil.
Fortis' team in Brazil.
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How Fortis focused on a developer-based M&A strategy | Jeferson Valadares interview

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 13 min

In the downturn, life isn’t easy for game developers. Fortis hopes to provide some shelter for them so they can focus on making big triple-A games.

Founded by game veterans Shawn Foust, Steve Chiang, and Calvin Lau, Fortis started out with a bang by getting funding from Las Vegas Sands, the big casino empire, and buying three companies. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Las Vegas Sands, the team has a war chest to both grow its own game studios and acquire some as well.

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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.