Amplitude Studios, the maker of Endless Space and Endless Legend, is now part of the SEGA family.
The indie studio broke the news of the acquisition in a post, with founders Mathieu Girard and Romain de Waubert de Genlis saying the opportunity to join SEGA was a dream come true.
The two wrote that they created Amplitude because they wanted to make games. However, the realities of the industry, like sales and marketing, caught up with them and they realized that the studio was ill-equipped to take on the increasing challenges presented to them. As such, they decided to look for a partner that could take care of the "distractions" while Amplitude kept its focus on developing games.
This is where SEGA comes in.
Amplitude's founders are big fans of the works of Relic and Creative Assembly, which, along with Sports Interactive, are already part of SEGA's stable of PC developers. They saw it as a great opportunity then to be part of the same team as these other studios.
The bigger reason they chose SEGA, however, was in how the company treats its internal studios.
"Often, studios are controlled by a central department that dictates what games they should do, and how and when," they explained. "But SEGA is a company that offers its support to the creators, positioning itself as a service provider, helping studios to reach their goals with only one objective in mind: Quality!"
A few days before the post, the two revealed the acquisition to their staff and were amazed at how well their team received the news of becoming part of SEGA.
"Culturally, Amplitude are a fantastic fit for the business as they not only produce great games, but also have a proven track record in listening to their fans and directly involving them in the ongoing development of their games through their Games2Gether system," said Jurgen Post, SEGA Europe's COO and president.
Amplitude's founders, who go by AmpliMath and SpaceTroll in the community, invited their fans to ask them anything about the acquisition via the Games2Gether forums. Some have expressed their worries over the indie studio now being tied to a big publisher but more are hopeful that the potential of the partnership will be realized.
Having acquired Amplitude, SEGA is now assuming responsibility not only for the back catalog of the Endless series but also for publishing Endless Space 2, which is set to go into Early Access later in 2016.
