Havok Buys Kore Virtual Machine

Middleware company Havok has bought the Kore Virtual Machine product and tech, and will rebrand it as Havok Script -- a stand-alone product that will ultimately interact with the rest of the Havok tool portfolio. Developed by New Game Technologies, the Kore VM is an implementation of the Lua scripting language that has previously shipped with Microsoft Visual Studio environment and profiler Kore Studio. It's been used by Sega, Bungie and Lionhead to name just a few. Now Havok will rebrand the product and assume all its technical and commercial functions -- further, the company says it plans to work closely with Kore's team to make the transition easier for customers. Going forward, Havok will provide support, licensing and services for the product, including an engineering team to assume ongoing development. "This is a very exciting time for Havok as we complete our first product technology acquisition and extend our offering to include Havok Script," says Havok managing director David Coghlan. "We'd been looking at taking the company in a new R&D direction for some time," explains NGT CEO Hugh Reynolds. "I guess we thrive on new product development, so we were delighted when the opportunity came up to place the Kore VM technology with Havok" -- he calls the acquisition a "real win-win result." Reynolds is himself formerly a founder of Havok -- he and fellow Havok alum Steven Collins started Kore late in 2008, and developed version one of the company's virtual machine with a round of funding.