Worms Studio Team17 Amps Up Social Strategy With Iguana Acquisition

Worms developer Team17 Software has absorbed the assets and the staff of independent studio Iguana Entertainment, the studio developing the upcoming Worms Social. The move both bolsters Team17's social game abilities, and adds notable industry veterans Jason and Darren Falcus to its staff. Effective immediately, a number of Iguana Entertainment employees will join Team17's Wakefield office. In addition to Worms Social, the team is also developing three other unannounced social games and an unannounced multiplatform console title. "Jason and Darren will play a key part in fulfilling our future plans for the company, with their industry and gaming knowledge," says Team17's managing director Debbie Bestwick. "They bring a wealth of cross-platform knowledge across an array of genres." Team17, best known for releasing the Worms series across various consoles and PCs, is particularly interested in the studio's experience in social games and Facebook development. It says the group will complement its plans to "expand further into digital, mobile, and web development." The Falcus Brothers, as they are often known, have worked in the British game industry since independently coding a number of computer games in the early 1980s. They formed their first company, Optimus Software (later Iguana UK and, later still, Acclaim Studios Teesside), in 1988. Optimus developed a number of franchises for Codemasters including Bignose the Caveman and the Seymour series before its acquisition by Austin's now-defunct Igunana Entertainment and subsequent integration into Acclaim. The brothers' later output for the company included both games in the Shadow Man series, a number of home versions of NBA Jam, and the Nintendo 64 version of Forsaken. They also provided programming support to the Austin team, on games including those in the Aero the Acrobat series. After leaving Acclaim in 2000, the brothers formed Atomic Planet, a studio most known perhaps for its ports and licensed properties (Mega Man Anniversary Collection, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo for the Game Boy Advance, Taito Legends 2), though the company created original games as well, most notably 2004's controversial The Guy Game. In all they claim to have shipped 123 games across 35 platforms.