New acquisitions are afoot in the video game industry, with Sony Interactive Entertainment today announcing they have entered into a ‘definite agreement’ to acquire Savage Game Studios as the company begins investing more resources into the mobile gaming market. Founded in 2020, Savage Game Studios has teams in Berlin and Helsinki, and is pitched as having a team with “many years of experience making some of the most popular mobile games enjoyed by players around the world”.
In line with Sony Interactive Entertainment’s recent forays into the mobile gaming market, Savage Game Studios will be joining the PlayStation Studios Mobile Division. They claim it will “operate independently from console development and focus on creating fresh, on-the-go experiences for new and existing PlayStation IP”. Just what projects this new relationship will entail, are unknown at this time.
We are currently in a time where Sony Interactive Entertainment’s PlayStation team at Microsoft’s Xbox team appear to be bolstering their development team numbers with new acquisitions. While on the Xbox side this has included major companies including Bethesda Softworks and (soon) Activision, the PlayStation side seems to be focusing on strategic independent (but still large) studios including Bungie and Housemarque – while still giving them a layer of independence.
Statement from Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios
I hope you’ll join me in welcoming Savage Game Studios into the fold, and that those of you who enjoy mobile gaming in addition to console or PC will look forward to what they have in store. They’re already working on a new unannounced AAA mobile live service action game. It’s too early to reveal more, but I’m so excited for when they’ll be able to.
Statement from Michail Katkoff, CEO and Co-Founder of Savage Game Studios
Hello everyone in the PlayStation community! Established in 2020 and led by myself and fellow Co-founders Nadjim Adjir and Michael McManus, Savage Game Studios was born of our many years of mobile game development experience spanning a number of massively successful global IP. Our guiding vision was a creative space where experimentation and taking risks weren’t warily avoided, but rather eagerly embraced. We’ve all worked at big studios and while we respect the advantages of ample resources, we wanted to stay small and nimble so we could call our own shots.
So why then, you may be thinking to yourself, would you join PlayStation Studios? We made this deal because we believe that PlayStation Studios’ leadership respects our vision for how we can best operate and succeed, and because they too are not afraid to take chances. All of that, plus the ability to potentially tap into PlayStation’s amazing catalog of IP and the fact that we will benefit from the kind of support that only they can provide… The harder question to answer would be “why not?
On behalf of everybody at Savage Game Studios, thank you for having us. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on!
