Despite some grumblings of employee unhappiness, Korean publisher NCsoft has been busy on its business side of things. Today, the publisher announced they’ve acquired California-based developer Carbine Studios.
Even though Carbine hasn’t released its first game yet, the employee list is pretty impressive. The studio is comprised of 17 former Blizzard employees, including various lead and senior developers from the folks who developed World of Warcraft.
Also Tim Cain, co-founder of Troika Studios and producer for the awesome RPG Fallout, is part of the Carbine bunch.
Not much is known about Carbine’s debut game, except that it’s "an unannounced project that promises to break new ground in massively multiplayer gaming." Judging by this acquisition, NCsoft is trying to boost up its own MMO developing. It’ll be interesting to see if NCsoft picks up Carbine’s entry game, heck, just seeing something about it in the first place will be even more interesting.
Robert Garriott, CEO for NCsoft North America, said, "This is a dev team made in heaven. This group is as experienced as they come in the area of computer role playing and multiplayer game design. Making successful games is second nature to them. They are a very welcome addition to the NCsoft family. The gaming community should be excited to see what great things come out of Carbine Studios in the coming years."
