Sega has acquired France-based PC and Xbox One developer Amplitude Studios, best know for its turn-based 4x space strategy game Endless Space.
Formed in 2011 by a number of former Ubisoft employees, Amplitude Studios self-published its first game, Endless Space, in 2012. It has since sold over 1 million copies, with the developer releasing a number of post-launch DLC packs for the game. In 2014, it released a fantasy-based 4x strategy game, Endless Legends, along with Dungeon of the Endless, a roguelike sci-fi game that was later released for the Xbox One in 2016. The developer is currently working on Endless Space 2 for release later in 2016.
In a post on Amplitude's community site Games2Gether.com, the studio talked about why it decided to be acquired by Sega:
What we want to do is to focus on making games; that is why we created Amplitude. But with the pressure on sales and marketing we found that more and more time was dedicated to everything else – everything that we didn't have the size and scale to deal with. So we decided to look for the best partner we could to protect us from these distractions so that game development did not become a chore, but remained a passion. Therefore, we have decided to join forces with SEGA – yes, that SEGA! We want the only question that keeps us up at night to be, "How do I make better games?" Partnering with SEGA will bring us to a whole new level.
The specific financial terms of this deal were not disclosed. Sega already owns two strategy game studios. One is The Creative Assembly, home of the Total War franchise and developers of the upcoming Halo Wars 2 RTS game from Microsoft. The other is Relic Entertainment, the makers of the Company of Heroes and Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War series. It's currently working on Dawn of War 3.
