Sumo Digital Acquires EVE Valkyrie Studio
Aidan O'Brien
CCP Games, the developers behind the EVE Online universe, has sold their Newcastle studio to Sumo Digital. Sumo Digital has worked on titles such as Forza Motorsport 7, Little Big Planet 3 and the upcoming Crackdown 3. The studio, which is based in Sheffield, have also previously worked with CCP on their FPS Project Nova.
CCP’s original intent to sell the studio was announced in October of last year. As such, this is a reasonably quick sale, and it is easy to imagine the two companies having worked together led to quick communications between the two. CCP has said that they are moving away from VR, but Sumo Digital has not stated if they are bringing in the Newcastle based developers to help on a VR project.
In their announcement, Sumo Digital Managing Director Paul Porter had the following to say.
As we continue to expand this was a great opportunity to bring an experienced, talented and tight-knit team on board.
This brings the number of studios currently under Sumo Digital to four, and were I a betting man I would say it marks a move away from helping to prop up other people’s projects and helping out with ports to a future more based around their own projects.
The move sees 34 new staff falling under the Sumo Digital banner. At the moment the financial details of the deal are not known. It is nice to see a studio simply change owners instead of closing down, so that is a nice start to the new year for the 34 people affected by the move.
As for CCP, only a crazed gaming journalist would attempt to predict what they might do. At this point the studio is known for having several projects on the go at any one time, although the only constant seems to be EVE Online.
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