Warner Brothers acquires developer Rocksteady Studios

In a press release sent out earlier today, Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Group has announced that the company has purchased a majority stake in Batman: Arkham Asylum developer, Rocksteady Studios. For those of you keeping tabs on the gaming industries purchases, you’ll want to keep note that Square Enix still remains a 25% owner of the developer as well.

Fortunately, this is a positive move for all despite the fact that purchases in the industry are often regarded as the big guy taking out the little guy to avoid competing against them. Warner Brothers and Rocksteady however have a solid relationship with one another due to their collaboration on the sleeper hit of the year last August with Arkham Asylum. As most of you know, Rocksteady is currently hard at work on the sequel.

We’ve included some quotes from the press release below.

“Rocksteady demonstrated its professionalism and extraordinary development abilities with Batman: Arkham Asylum,” said Kevin Tsujihara, president, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. “This arrangement is a great strategic fit and we are very pleased to solidify our relationship with this talented development team.”

“We are proud to strengthen our association with WBIE, a world class publisher that we have enjoyed working with since we began developing Batman: Arkham Asylum,” said Jamie Walker, studio director, Rocksteady Studios. Sefton Hill, games director, added, “The Rocksteady team is very much looking forward to creating more great games based on widely recognized Warner Bros. brands like Batman.”

“With the successful release of Batman: Arkham Asylum, a franchise that is a key focus for Warner Bros., Rocksteady has proven that they have the expertise to create hit games with mass appeal,” said Martin Tremblay, president, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “We are currently working with Rocksteady on the sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum and look forward to bringing the continuation of the franchise to fans worldwide.”

“We are delighted to be deepening our relationship with London-based Rocksteady Studios, one of the UK’s most respected games developers and 2009 recipient of the VGA’s coveted ‘studio of the year’ award,” said Josh Berger, president and managing director, Warner Bros. UK. “Rocksteady clearly has the talent, expertise and technology to make great games and we are fortunate to continue working closely with them as we further expand our games portfolio.”

How many of you are excited for the sequel?

Readers Comments (14)

  1. I am. In the best case scenario, Rocksteady gets A LOT more resources and we get a better game. . . . . . . . . or WB just becomes a control freak and we get a half baked game. . . .

  2. Not me. I say this because I never played the first one. Heard great things about it. But now that is has a dedicated publisher, that just means more money for them to make an even better game or to destroy it.

  3. @1: Quite the opposite. I think this shouls help them with their Batman game since they don’t have to be licensing stuff and their budget has probably increased noticeably.

  4. @Thorzilla: Well yeah, that’s one of the 2 outcomes I said. But what if WB gets in the way of the developers creative process?, what if the succes of the first game has WG making safe choices instead of trying to innovate?.

    That’s just 2 sides of the same coin.

  5. i am looking foward to it as the first one was good but it wasnt great hopfully they will make this one great it has the potensial

  6. definitely excited 🙂 , still yet to play the first but thats all gonna change next month

  7. Can’t wait to roam around Gotham City! So many villains! Can’t wait to be the Caped Crusader again!

  8. I am super excited for the sequel. Batman: Arkham Asylum was my GOTY 2009.

  9. should this be considered good or bad. I hope WB don’t try to play safe and play down the game, never played the first heard lot of great things, looking forward to the sequel, hope it doesnt do a Bioshock 2

  10. wb will help aa 2 have a better comic book feel

  11. Hopefully they would make an awesome Sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum XD

  12. AA2??? i cant wait for that!

    and what?? SE owns 25% of it???

  13. I hope that Warners Brothers and Rocksteady Studios will make a great sequel to the game now that Warners Brothers own a large portion of RockSteady Studio. Warners Brothers, which is the bigger company will be able to fund RockSteady Studio games and give them a bigger budget to work with.

  14. Hopefully warner will help push batman even further and make a great sequel.

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