Gaming

Rockstar acquires Dhruva Interactive from Starbreeze for $7.9 million



Rockstar Games has acquired Dhruva Interactive from Starbreeze for $7.9 million.

As reported by pocketgamer.biz, Dhruva Interactive was acquired by Starbreeze back in December 2016 for $8.5m. While the sale won’t see the Swedish company recoup the full cost of the acquisition, selling its 91.82 per cent stake in the Indian developer may help Starbreeze mitigate the loss reported in its recent Q1 FY19 report, which intimated the company had a “liquidity shortfall” and reported that if no additional funds were provided, the company could shut by mid-year 2019.

Dhruva Interactive currently employs nearly 300 staff and works across console, mobile, and PC platforms on titles such as Forza Motorsport 7, Halo 5, and Sea of Thieves. The deal – which is expected to complete by the end of next month – is not expected to disrupt Dhruva’s current projects, as well as collaborate with Rockstar India.

“Rockstar Games are the undisputed leaders of innovation and creativity in modern games development,” said Dhruva founder and CEO Rajesh Rao. “Dhruva Interactive was founded with the aim of creating a world-class games development community in India, and so bringing the Dhruva team under the Rockstar Games label is further proof that we have succeeded in creating a talented team that can contribute to the best games in the world while helping to create a thriving local games developer community in India.”

“Dhruva Interactive has been a beacon of Indian games development for decades and we are excited to bring them into the Rockstar family,” added Rockstar India studio manager, Daniel Smith. “The addition of the Dhruva team to the existing talent at Rockstar India will expand the studio’s capabilities and reinforces our belief in and commitment to the local development community.”

Take-Two posted an exceptional set of Q4 and full-year results for 2018-2019 yesterday evening. On the back of the launch of Red Dead Redemption, the company’s total net booking rose by 47 per cent to a record $2.93bn (£2.55bn).

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told MCV: “Red Dead Redemption 2 is a massive hit, we sold in more than 24m units. And we’ve maintained the original wholesale price while doing that.”

The online mode for the game is still in beta but that due to end soon, Strauss revealed. “We expect to come out of beta in the current quarter and launch more content. History shows that when we do that we gain momentum both with online and the core game as well.

“So we couldn’t be happier with Red Dead Redemption 2 and the outlook for Red Dead Online. We’ll see how it continues to perform, but results for Red Dead Online were up sequentially in the quarter,” he told us, before adding that a total of 90m people had engaged with a Rockstar Games title over the financial year.



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