Troubled developer Gas Powered Games has a new home.
Wargaming, the developer responsible for massively multiplayer games like World of Tanks, acquired Supreme Commander 2 studio Gas Powered Games today, according to an official announcement from Wargaming.net.
Gas Powered Games’ chief executive Chris Taylor and several other of the studio’s developers will make the transition to Wargaming.
Gas Powered is coming off a failed Kickstarter to fund a new game called Wildman.
“Gas Powered Games’ heritage and development pedigree shows us just how valuable an addition Chris and his company will make to the Wargaming family,” Wargaming CEO Victor Kislyi said in a statement. “Gas Powered Games has a long track record of providing incredibly engaging triple-A gaming experiences, and we can’t wait to start working with them.”
Just days into the Wildman Kickstarter, Gas Powered Games chief Chris Taylor announced massive layoffs at the studio, which turned the crowdfunding campaign into a gambit to save the company.
“Wargaming’s growth in recent years has been tremendous, and we’re looking forward to joining one of the fastest growing gaming companies in the world,” said Taylor. “I’m sure our experience and expertise will help us contribute even more to Wargaming’s global success.”
Wargaming is one of the largest free-to-play developers. It’s stable of military MMOs include the aforementioned — and incredibly popular — World of Tanks as well as World of Warplanes and World of Warships.
This is Wargaming’s second acquisition in two weeks. The developer spent $20 million to purchase F.E.A.R. 3 developer Day 1 Studios in late January.
Gas Powered Games’ most recent release was the free-to-play strategy game Age of Empires Online, a real-time strategy title where players control empires throughout their history. The studio is best known for creating the Dungeon Siege series of role-playing games and the real-time strategy Supreme Commander series.
Wildman, Gas Powered’s Kickstarter project, is an action role-playing game (like Dungeon Siege) with real-time strategy elements (slightly similar to Nintendo’s Pikmin games). The developer hit the crowdfunding site with a mammoth $1.1 million goal but only raised $500,000 before shutting down the campaign with four days left.
We reached out to Taylor to ask what will happen to Wildman. We will update this story as we learn more information.