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Speaking exclusively to VG247, Massive Entertainment’s senior execs have revealed that they’re already in talks for a potential sale of the World in Conflict developer, following now-confirmed news that Activision is to sell the outfit as a result of its merger with Blizzard.
“It seems like we have plenty of options,” said company president and founder Martin Walfisz, talking at Develop last week. “We’ve had some good meetings here.”
He added: “Being a part of a merger like this is a strange situation, because obviously the new organisation has to look over all of its assets, everything it owns and its strategy for the future. For the past six month’s we’ve been waiting for the merger to go through and to understand whether they see us as a part of their future or not.
“Apparently they didn’t want an RTS studio in Europe, and to be honest we would have loved to have worked with Activision, but we’re pretty confident in our capabilities and there are not many studios that can match our quality.”
The firm is currently working on the console versions of World in Conflict – Soviet Assault for PS3 and 360 – and has expanded expertise outside the PC space as a result.
“We’re working on the console versions [of World in Conflict] together with Swordfish,” said VP David Polfeldt. “In the past year or so we’ve been increasing our console capabilities, going from PC to having a really good understanding of console as well.”
Activision won’t publish the console titles, however, which are now also on the market.
“Activision won’t publish [Soviet Assault], no,” said Walfisz. “That’s part of the whole situation now. In theory they could sell World in Conflict separately from Massive. I think that any buyer would like to make sure it goes together, but we don’t own it. Activision owns it, so that’s their call.”
While options are opening for the developer, the company is now effectively in limbo. Walfisz was confident, though, that Massive will pull through.
“I think that right now everyone is in ‘wait and see’ mode and just want to know what the future holds,” he said.
“But Massive has been in tough situations before in the past 12 years, and we’ve always come out stronger. Most of the guys in the company at least have faith in our ability to find a really interesting future.”
Viewing 9 responses
that_happy_cat said:
Massive will come out of this smelling of roses. They are a very talented studio with a bunch of top class folk working there. Some publisher is going to end up with a bargain!
patlike said:
WiC was brilliant. As well as the Ghostbusters drop, this has to be Activision’s weirdest decision in terms of the merger. They’re really talented.
pjmaybe said:
Wait a minute, the Ghostbusters drop was reversed wasn’t it?
morriss said:
Not I far as we know, no. Where did you read that?
Axle said:
Was Ghostbusters actually ever offically cancelled?
patlike said:
It wasn’t cancelled, nope. Activision’s putting it out to tender.
SplatteredHouse said:
Good to read current news of the console WiC. I forgot that it was with the expansion, Soviet Assault. The exec’s comments increase my enthusiasm for a strong showing for this ambitious game.
rainer said:
I really hope they pull through, Ground Control & World in Conflict are some of my favourite strategy games it would be a big blow to PC gaming to lose Massive.
It seems such a shame that Activision chose to not work with them especially as Massive games are much better suited to consoles than other PC RTS games.
I wonder what this means for the WiC expansion and console version ?
ElfShotTheFood said:
Massive Sale.
http://www.instantrimshot.com/