The British game-development scene got a bit of a shakeup today.
The Catalis Group, a tech conglomerate, acquired Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones developer Curve Digital today, and it will use this new subsidiary to form Curve Digital Entertainment. This new division will include Curve as well as developer Kuju Entertainment and quality-assurance company Testronic. For leadership, Catalis has turned to industry veteran Dominic Wheatley to act as the chief executive of Curve Digital Entertainment. Wheatley was a cofounder of Tomb Raider publisher Eidos Interactive.
Catalis sees Curve Digital as an opportunity to grow into a major player in the game business.
“Our acquisition of Curve Digital and merging them with Kuju means we have created the potential for a major new British games publisher, the first of its kind for many years,” said Wheatley.
The United Kingdom’s game scene doesn’t have a ton of big, independent publishers. Square Enix purchased Eidos in 2010, Ignition Entertainment has withered under its UTV owners, and Codemasters primarily deals in licensed racing games. A company promising a new era for game publishing in the U.K. could work — especially when looking to the rest of Europe, which has seen successes like Ubisoft in France, Koch Media in Germany, and Paradox Interactive in Sweden.
Curve is already positioning itself as the go-to publisher for smaller U.K. studios.
“[The formation of Curve Digital Entertainment] is also good news for the U.K. indie games community,” said Wheatley. “[This means they can] have a professional publishing partner who can take their titles to the international market.”