Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd has announced it will acquire racing game studio Eden Games from Engine Gaming & Media.
The Hong Kong-based blockchain gaming company has agreed to purchase 100% of the French video game developer Eden Games' issued capital from its parent company.
The deal gives Animoca access to some of the best video games made by the French studio and helps the HK company move closer to establishing a blockchain-powered metaverse.
This deal follows Animoca's February acquisition of motorsport-themed mobile game developer Grease Monkey, which has Torque Burnout and Torque Drift among its many titles.
New partner
Eden Games is the developer of Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed, F1 Mobile Racing, Gear.Club and Test Drive, which range from pure racing products to open-world and management racing games.
The company celebrated a major milestone last month after releasing Gear.Club Stradale, the latest instalment in Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)'s Gear.Club franchise. The announcement was made at Apple's Peek Performance event in March and showcased it as the "next big release" exclusively on Apple Arcade.
More than 30 established luxury brands in the automotive industry also have long-term partnerships with Eden Games, including BMW, Bugatti, Porsche, Lotus, Pagani and others.
Acquisition rationale
Animoca Brands intends to use Eden Games and the racing history of the company to create richer gaming experiences through blockchain technology, as part of a goal to "advance digital property rights for gaming and the metaverse".
"With its quarter of a century of expertise in building high-quality motorsport video games, Eden Games will enhance and accelerate the development of the REVV Motorsport ecosystem and add powerful value to the REVV community and the racing metaverse," Animoca co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu said in a statement.
While Eden Games' expertise and capabilities will to be tapped to develop new and existing titles within the play-to-earn REVV Motorsport ecosystem, the new games will provide additional value to the NFT Race Passes and the other assets obtained by exchanging assets from Animoca Brands' F1® Delta Time, which ceased operations in March 2022.
"We are excited to start the next chapter of Eden Games by joining Animoca Brands. We look forward to producing new experiences that challenge the status quo within the motorsport genre and venture into new frontiers such as Web3 alongside a leader in the space," said Eden Games co-founder and head of studio David Nadal.
At the beginning of 2022, Animoca Brands was valued at US$5 billion. The Web3 and Gamefi investment firm develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products including the REVV token and SAND token; original games including The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes; and products using popular intellectual property like Disney, WWE, Snoop Dogg, The Walking Dead, Power Rangers, MotoGP™, and Formula E.
Huge portfolio
French car racing video game developer Eden Games was founded in 1998 in Lyon and has strong experience in developing award-winning racing games across the mobile, console and PC platforms.
The company first gained attention with the release of the cult classic game V-Rally on PlayStation systems.
In 2000, the studio expanded its racing expertise with the development of Need For Speed: Porsche for Electronic Arts.
In the following years, the company’s founders David Nadal and Jean-Yves Geffroy grew their team and developed F1® Mobile Racing and Gear.Club franchise.
More than 13 million game boxes have been sold by Eden Games, and upwards of 60 million apps have been downloaded worldwide in its games portfolio.
Games they play
Eden's Gear.Club Unlimited franchise has sold more than 1 million Nintendo Switch units, and it's now available on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.
The hyper-realistic racing simulator game Gear.Club served as the main qualification game for World's Fastest Gamer, a first-of-its-kind competition that turns motorsport gamers into real-world champions.
With upwards of 100 broadcasters in more than 50 countries and distribution on ESPN, EURO Sport, and Amazon, World's Fastest Gamer has over 400 million TV and video on demand viewers worldwide.
- Amrita Ghaswalla