Sony has announced PlayStation is getting into mobile games, along with the acquisition of Savage Game Studios overnight.
Savage Game Studios was founded in 2020 by Nadjim Adjir and Mike McManus, both of whom worked on mobile games at Wargaming. The company’s CEO is Michail Katkoff, who founded the gaming media company Deconstructor of Fun. Savage currently has two offices, one in Berlin and the other in Helsinki.
“Our guiding vision was a creative space where experimentation and taking risks weren’t warily avoided, but rather eagerly embraced,” reads a statement from Katkoff in the post. “We’ve all worked at big studios and while we respect the advantages of ample resources, we wanted to stay small and nimble so we could call our own shots.”
This statement begs a simple question: If staying small, nimble and independent are so core to the company’s identity, why agree to a merger with one of the world’s biggest publishers? Katkoff is ready for that one.
“We made this deal because we believe that PlayStation Studios’ leadership respects our vision for how we can best operate and succeed, and because they too are not afraid to take chances. All of that, plus the ability to potentially tap into PlayStation’s amazing catalog of IP and the fact that we will benefit from the kind of support that only they can provide… The harder question to answer would be “why not?”
Katkoff makes no announcements about what Savage Games Studios is currently working on with Sony but says he can’t wait for audiences to see it.
Enter PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst to calm any fears about the mobile gaming bogeyman. “Today, we announced that we have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Savage Game Studios, a hugely talented team of creatives with many years of experience making some of the most popular mobile games enjoyed by players around the world,” reads Hulst’s statement.
Hulst provides a running list of the games that PlayStation has dropped this year across both the PS4 and PS5, along with a look ahead at things like God of War: Ragnarok and the PSVR 2 that will dominate the next six months of Sony’s calendar. He also points to its recent surge of PC ports to demonstrate how PlayStation plans to expand its library while making sure new additions, no matter the platform, remain ‘additive.’ Then, he finally pulls the cover off of the new PlayStation Studios Mobile Division.
“Our mobile gaming efforts will be similarly additive, providing more ways for more people to engage with our content, and striving to reach new audiences unfamiliar with PlayStation and our games. Savage Game Studios is joining a newly created PlayStation Studios Mobile Division, which will operate independently from our console development and focus on innovative, on-the-go experiences based on new and existing PlayStation IP.”
So, for now, we will wait and see what comes of this new arrangement. Sony wants to take its content library and apply it to the mobile space, which is a smart and obvious move. What form those games will take, of course, remains to be seen.
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