Snapshot Games has confirmed its partnered with Koch Media for the physical distribution of its upcoming turn-based strategy game, Phoenix Point.
Snapshot Games recently pushed back Phoenix Point’s release date in order to keep “crunch to a minimum”. The September 3rd launch was delayed until an unspecified date in December 2019, although the developer has promised that backers will be able to play Backer Build 5 on the original release date instead.
“While the development team is working hard, and Phoenix Point is shaping up really well, we now know we’re going to need more time to get it to meet our very high standards,” the team said at the time. “As you probably know, Snapshot has a commitment to keep crunch to a minimum – and that is a commitment we take very seriously. Therefore, because we know we have more work than we have time, we will be delaying the release of game from September 3, 2019, to December 2019.”
Phoenix Point is just one of a slew of exclusive titles snapped up by Epic Game Store from partners as wide-ranging as Take-Two’s Private Division, Quantic Dream, Remedy and 505 Games. Following the success of The Division 2, Ubisoft has committed to launching more new titles, and back catalogue titles, on the store, too, continuing its partnership where titles are exclusive to UPlay and Epic Game Store.
Koch Media recently acquired racing specialist studio, Milestone, for €44.9 million in cash. The agreement saw Koch acquire the development studio and all intellectual property rights. The Milan-based developer, perhaps best known for titles like MotoGP, Supercross, MXGP and RIDE, was founded in 1994 as Graffiti. After rebranding as Milestone in 1996, the “family-owned business” has gone on to employ around 200 staff and worked with partners such as Virgin, Electronic Arts, and Black Bean.
CEO Klemens Kundratitz explained to MCV@gamescom the thinking behind the acquisition of Gaya, a German merchandise producer and distributor with 29 employees, which has more than a decade of experience in the gaming sector.
“It’s an interesting step for us, that we can complement our video games offering to retail with game merchandise. We have long-standing relationships with other game merchandise companies, like Rubber Road and they will continue as before, but also having a merchandise offering in our own house, enables us to offer our publishing partners a route to that segment of the market, not only manufacturing and distributing games but also help them on the game merchandise side.”
