Publisher Bigben Interactive has acquired the independent French studio, Spiders. The developer is best known for its work on 2014’s Bound by Flame, 2016’s The Technomancer, and the upcoming 2019 RPG Greedfall. Spiders will join Bigben to “leverage the commercial and marketing strength of an established publisher to increase the distribution of its games and benefit from the emulation generated by belonging to a group of talented studios.”
Bigben’s statement adds:
This new external growth fits perfectly into the Bigben 2022 plan, which aims at making Bigben one of the reference leaders in AA video games. By expanding its research and development division with this new recognized player in the development of video games in France, Bigben is integrating additional skills that will enable it to further strengthen the upstream structure of its Gaming sector, and create value by offering contents long-awaited by an everchanging video game market.
Spiders has been around since 2008 and released its first game, Sherlock Holmes Versus Jack The Ripper, in 2009 for the Xbox 360. Since then, the developer has released eight titles, most of which were published by Focus Home Interactive. Focus Home will still be publishing the upcoming Greedfall, which is slated for a September 10, 2019 release date.
Bigben Interactive was founded in 1981 and has been publishing games since 1999, with over 100 games under its belt. The publisher has also purchased other studios recently, like Cyanide and Eko Software in 2018. Now, Bigben will be made up of six French developers and almost 300 employees.
Now that Spiders has consistent backing from Bigben, it will be interesting to see what kinds of games emerge from the studio. Although, we likely won’t see what the partnership has in store for at least a couple years. The acquisition will be finalized in September of 2019.
What do you make of Bigben acquiring Spiders? Does this news excite you? Let us know!
[Source: Bigben via Games Industry]
