Clearly the theme of the week is MMO acquisitions and mergers. Following Wargaming acquiring Day 1 Studios and rebranding it Wargaming West and the new alliance of GungHo Group-Grasshopper Manufacture, Webzen has snapped up the majority of F2P publisher Gala-Net.
Webzen, best known this side of the pond for Archlord, Continent of the Ninth and Arctic Combat, purchased all of the American company’s stock early this morning, according to Reuters. The ~$17.5 million purchase is expected to close on February 15, giving Webzen control over Gala-Net’s North American, European and Brazilian operations, which are best known by the gPotato moniker.
gPotato is the operator of Allods Online, Flyff, the browser-based Battlestar Galactica Online, with the latest entries being the fantasy/scifi combat MMORPG Sevencore and the fantasy MMORPG Drakensang Online.
After seeing the surprisingly low number for the amount of IP and operational capabilities, an MMOCulture commentator dug a little deeper on the financials. Noting that the just-sold operations have suffered heavily throughout 2012, with revenue down 40% from 2011-2012.
I loathe to admit that I played Flyff for quite awhile as a no-brainer relief to hardcore WoW raiding…Have you played any of gPotato’s dozen+ products?