Rebellion Acquires Vivendi Licenses, Considers New Franchise Titles

Independent UK developer Rebellion has acquired a number of former Vivendi game properties following the publisher's merger with Activision, and now CEO Jason Kingsley has said he and his company are "putting our plans together for new titles in each series." In addition to the Elixir Studios-created RTS Evil Genius, which Rebellion acquired along with other Elixir IP when the studio went out of business, the developer now also owns sci-fi RTS Ground Control by Massive Entertainment, historical RTS Empire Earth by Mad Doc Software, and medieval turn-based strategy franchises Lords of the Realm and Lords of Magic by Impressions Games. As far as the studios themselves, former Vivendi subsidiary Massive Entertainment was sold to Ubisoft, Mad Doc is now owned by Take-Two as Rockstar New England, and Impressions has since gone out of business. The new Rebellion-owned status of the properties had been inferred after the company released Evil Genius on Valve's Steam, followed by a Rebellion-branded announcement by Good Old Games that titles from each franchise would be available for download on the GOG.com distribution platform. And speaking to BigDownload, Kingsley confirmed that Rebellion indeed owns all rights to the games -- including the ability to create new series entries. "We have complete ownership of the IP from the past and going forwards, so yes we're putting our plans together for new titles in each series," said the CEO. "Exactly what and when is currently up for discussion." Kingsley said the rise of direct downloads has been a boon to independent companies marketing games lacking blockbuster status: "The rise of digital distribution is an exciting area for us and makes developing a smaller high quality game more possible for a developer working on their own," he said, adding that Rebellion's own Sniper Elite is due on Steam soon. Currently, Rebellion is also developing Rogue Warrior for Bethesda and a new Aliens vs. Predator game for Sega.