HeroEngine Owner Idea Fabrik Founds New U.S. Dev Studio

Germany-headquartered Idea Fabrik quietly purchased the HeroEngine development platform and technology from Simutronics late in 2010, and now the company's founded a new game development studio in northern Virginia called Second Star Interactive. The studio will be run by Darrin Hyrup, former executive and co-founder of Electronic Arts' Mythic studio, and Idea Fabrik says Second Star Interactive will employ a number of Mythic vets, as well as staff with experience at Bethesda Softworks and Sony Online Entertainment. According to Neil Harris, who's president of IdeaFabrik's U.S. HeroEngine operations, owning an actual game development studio is a "critical" way to stay close to the platform's user community. "Darrin and the Second Star team bring a wealth of experience and practical contributions to the table that will help us grow both as a technology provider and as a company," he says. Second Star Interactive will operate as a division of Idea Fabrik's wholly-owned U.S. arm, IF Studios. Idea Fabrik has an art studio in Ukraine called IT Lagoon, with which the studio will work on development projects and on showcasing HerEngine. Says Idea Fabrik chairman Alex Shalash: "We at Idea Fabrik are extremely excited about the launch of the Second Star Interactive studio, especially in the current environment of high growth in online game development, where the competition for high quality talent is very strong among both well-established players and the new breed of well-financed casual game developers." Simutronics originally developed and launched the HeroEngine in 2006. It's since been licensed to "dozens" of developers globally, and is notably used in upcoming BioWare MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic. IdeaFabrik also has a HeroEngine project in-house that it says will launch "later this year", and says many third-parties will also reveal projects developed with the tech in 2011.