The video game company Animoca Brands, which is responsible for The Sandbox, has announced the acquisition of the French video game studio Eden Games. Eden Games, which specializes in car racing games, will bring its know-how to Animoca to develop existing and future titles within the REVV Racing ecosystem.
Animoca Brands acquires Eden Games studio
Just months after seeing its valuation pass the $5 billion mark, Animoca Brands, a company specializing in games based on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has announced the acquisition of Eden Games.
Eden Games is a French video game studio, which is responsible for the V-Rally and Gear.Club franchises, as well as the Need for Speed: Porsche 2000 and F1 Mobile Racing games.
Specialized in car racing games, its Gear.Club Stradale title, available on iOS, was presented as “the next big thing in Apple Arcade”. In addition, Eden Games boasts over 60 million downloads for its various mobile games worldwide.
The studio also has more than 30 active partners of international renown such as Porsche, Bugatti, Pagani, Lotus and BMW.
Animoca Brands had to pay 16 million dollars for the purchase of Eden Games, according to the official press release. Most recently, the studio belonged to the company Engine Gaming & Media, which had itself bought it from Atari following a temporary closure in 2013.
Some projects already announced
With a strong portfolio of more than 150 investments in NFTs and blockchain-related projects, Animoca Brands is present on renowned platforms such as OpenSea, Yield Guild Games or Axie Infinity.
Eden Games will bring to Animoca Brands its know-how in terms of automotive games, particularly concerning the development of the REVV Racing (REVV) project, in which players can buy vehicles in the form of NFTs.
For David Nadal, co-founder and studio director of Eden Games, this acquisition will help move the motorsports ecosystem into the Web 3.0 space:
“We are thrilled to begin the next chapter of Eden Games by joining Animoca Brands. We look forward to producing new experiences that will challenge the status quo in the motorsports genre and venture into new frontiers such as Web 3.0 alongside a leader in the field.”
This announcement comes barely a month after the end of F1 Delta Time, a licensed Formula 1 game that had to stop its services due to a lack of ability to renew the latter. NFTs were offered by Animoca Brands as compensation to players who had spent money on the game, and according to the release, these NFTs will have a prominent place in future projects:
“The new games will provide additional utility to Race Passes NFTs and other assets obtained by redeeming animoca Brands’ F1 Delta Time assets.”
Eden Games marks the second acquisition as a racing game studio by Animoca Brands. Earlier this year, Animoca also acquired Grease Monkey Games, the company responsible for the development of Torque Drift.