We’ve already noted how the casual games market has started on a “boom” phase. Now the action is heating up in a somewhat unexpected way.
MumboJumbo, which creates products for the casual market, just acquired Ritual Games. That’s right, a casual company just took in a mainstreamer.
For those who may not know, Ritual Entertainment has developed such games as Delta Force – Black Hawk Down, Counter Strike, Quake 4, and the SiN games, among others.
Now, that’s something of a surprise. We’d expect it to be the other way around, where a mainstream company took on a producer of casual games.
MumboJumbo must be doing pretty well with casuals to buy Ritual. Also, it opens up some interesting speculation. Does Mumbo have plans to do some mainstream work?
Or are they planning more on getting a lock on the casuals with cutting-edge products? If so, are they looking to expand into the more hard-core area? Ritual, after all, is more into the shooter scene than anything else.
Check out the press release and see what you think
Now THAT is fascinating.
It seems that Ron Dimant left his CEO position at Ritual to form MumboJumbo, and has now gone back to buy his old company.
According to the press release, they intend to stay in the casual games business – so this is not a move to go more mainstream. I’ve also heard some rumors of a bit of an exodus from Ritual over the last month or so. So maybe Ritual was in dire financial straits when MumboJumbo grabbed them up? They might have come cheap. Or maybe the employees heard rumors of the impending acquisition? :)
Either way, it’s still hard to fathom exactly WHAT MumboJumbo expects to get out of this. Maybe it’s just an experienced internal development team.
Right, but one doesn’t always have to believe press releases entirely ;)
They may have some long-term plans where Ritual fits in. Also, the PR mentions RE’s work on “many platforms”. Could Mumbo has an eye on a console or two there, as well.
Whatever, it will certainly be interesting to see how this develops.
Oh, hey, I think you just hit the nail on the head, there, Scorpia. Some of the best-selling of the XBox Live Arcade games are more “casual” games. In fact, I think the best-seller right now is still Uno!
By “mainstream” do you mean “are they going to dump loads of money into half finishing games and release lots of patches that are re-hashes of the same old re-hashed games?”
Oh look, a Tetris game but it’s triangles instead of square blocks! How original!
My wife plays casual games and I’ll mistake a ‘new’ game for one of the ‘old’ games all the time. Nothing new under the sun – again.
What I like about you, Vag, is your optimistic outlook ;)
However, what matters is how the games are viewed by the intended audience. For them, the games may be “new”, even if just a reworking of something old to us.
@Scorpia – I tried to be chipper once but it almost killed me. LOL.
I guess I’m the classic jaded gamer. To many years of playing lame rehash needing too many patches. I am not so pessemistic in real life – just about games and politics.
Well, I can appreciate that, Vag, because I’m somewhat that way myself. But I do try to keep in mind that for most people, games are still a “new thing”. Even if the games they’re playing are revivals of something from umpteen years ago.