Riot Games Acquires Wargaming Sydney
Riot's new Australian studio, renamed to Riot Sydney, will help the company support League of Legends and Valorant as well as contribute to the work of Riot's tech teams.
League of Legends developer and publisher Riot Games announced that it has acquired the Wargaming Sydney studio. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Wargaming Sydney was founded in 2002 as BigWorld Technology. It gained fame as a developer of BigWorld, a middleware development tool suite for creating MMOs and virtual worlds that was used in over 30 MMO titles and online games.
In 2012, the studio was purchased by Wargaming and was subsequently operated as Wargaming Sydney. It worked on the company's military MMOs such as World of Tanks, World of Warships, and World of Warplanes.
In its announcement, Riot said that the studio’s entire development staff will join Riot Sydney. The studio will now be rebranded as Riot Sydney and it will help Riot develop its titles, including League of Legends and Valorant, as well as contribute to the work of Riot's tech teams. Riot's head of development studios Molly Mason-Boule will oversee the newly renamed developer.
Riot's purchase of Wargaming Sydney excludes the BigWorld server technology and the studio's publishing arm which will be retained by Wargaming.
"We are really excited to bring these talented developers and teams to Riot," co-founder and president of games Marc Merrill said. "The Rioters that have had the opportunity to work with members of the Sydney team are confident not only in the tech they’ve built over the years but, more importantly, in the people who’ve built it."
"Being part of Wargaming has been a phenomenal journey for us over the last 10 years, and it’s helped our studio grow and thrive," said head of development at Riot Sydney Naresh Hirani. "We were really impressed by the cultural fit we’ve experienced in our dealings with everyone at Riot, and we can’t wait to bring our expertise in global development to the respective teams."
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