Daedalic Entertainment - New Owner

Couchpotato

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Avantenor sent me a few links with information that Daedalic Entertainment has a new owner called Bastei Lübbe AG who acquired 51% of the developers stock.

Bastei Lübbe AG acquiring majority share in prize-winning game development house Daedalic Entertainment GmbH

Cologne/Hamburg, 16th of May, 2014: Bastei Lübbe AG, a publicly held company listed in the Prime Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, has acquired a majority share in Daedalic Entertainment GmbH of Hamburg, a multi-award winning publisher and developer of computer games. The relevant agreements were signed today. "For us, the investment in Daedalic represents another consistent step toward the implementation of our multimedia growth strategy. We see ourselves moving even closer to our strategic goal of establishing Bastei Lübbe as an internationally active publishing and multimedia house present along all parts of the value chain", explains Thomas Schierack, CEO of Bastei Lübbe.

Daedalic Entertainment, known for its prize-winning adventure and story-based computer games, is widely regarded as one of Germany's top game development and publishing houses. The company received its second "Studio of the Year" award in 2013, following in the footsteps of its triumph in 2009. Daedalic Entertainment earned revenues of roughly 6 mn euros in 2013, representing EBIT margins of over 10%. The Hamburg-based company is forecasting rising revenues through 2015, to around 14 mn euros, and EBIT growth of over 2 mn euros.

The companies are now planning on close cooperation: For Bastei Lübbe, the acquisition represents an expansion of its activities in this field. Daedalic Entertainment for its part will be able to focus even more clearly on creative development going forward: "This strategic partnership represents an ideal complement to both company's businesses", explains Daedalic Entertainment Founder and Director Carsten Fichtelmann.

The two companies are focused on the development of proprietary material and the production and marketing of captivating stories. As such, Daedalic is doing more than just adding its creative content to the Bastei Lübbe portfolio. Deadalic's brands, including the games "Deponia" and "Edna & Harvey: The Breakout", also bring with them a significant fan base, laying an ideal groundwork for synergy in the film, audio, comic and eBook areas.

The operative collaboration is effective immediately. The sides have agreed not to disclose any information about the purchase price for the controlling stake.

About Bastei Lübbe AG:

Bastei Lübbe AG is a media company organised around its publishing venture. The Cologne-based company currently has around 335 employees. It publishes books, audio books, ebooks and digital products in both the literary and popular science genres, as well as serialised novels and puzzle magazines. Bastei Lübbe is also actively involved in brand licensing and the development, production and distribution of gift, decoration and merchandising articles. Bastei Lübbe has for many years enjoyed an almost unbroken streak as the market leader in the growing segment of hard-cover literature; in 2013 its literary ebooks division was also ranked number one on the market. 2013 saw the company's 60th anniversary celebration and its launch as a publicly traded company. Shares of Bastei Lübbe AG are listed in the Prime Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (WKN A1X3YY, ISIN DE000A1X3YY0).

About Daedalic Entertainment GmbH:

Hamburg-based Daedalic Entertainment develops and markets high-quality computer and video games for a global market. The studio puts a developmental focus on outstanding entertainment software with a strong narrative character. Daedalic titles like Goodbye Deponia have claimed 21 German Developer prizes, including "Studio of the Year" in 2009 and 2013. Its Chaos on Deponia also earned the studio the German Computer Gaming Prize as "Best German Game of 2013". Daedalic Entertainment has won the German Computer Gaming Prize five times in all, as well as one European Games Award. Titles like Goodbye Deponia, Memoria and Edna & Harvey: The Breakout have set new benchmarks for the adventure segment. As a publisher of third-party content, Daedalic Entertainment has released unusual and outstanding titles such as Torchlight II, Gomo, Munin and Divinity: Original Sin.
More information.
 
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Gorath should have more news on the topic later. So check back later everyone.:)
 
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Could be a good thing - Bastei has rights to thousands of fantasy books.
 
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Or to John Sinclair and Jerry Cotton. It's not their first foray to the games sector. Bastei Lübbe once had a cooperation with dtp entertainment and released two audio books to The Black Mirror adventure games series.

BTW: John Sinclair author Jason Dark was eponymous for Guido Henkel's dime novel hero.
 
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Gorath should have more news on the topic later. So check back later everyone.:)

Not really. The only additional piece of info is that Daedalic's managing director will retain his job.
 
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Not really. The only additional piece of info is that Daedalic's managing director will retain his job.
See you did have something to add.:lol:
 
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As long as the new owner is not Bigpoint, I'm happy.
 
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ4diEohODE

Why is that so?
Bigpoint is the biggest german scam people into paying to win company. It's not the only one, but is the most aggressive one. The other similar but smaller companies are Innogames, Traviangames and Gameforge.
 
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Also is Daedalic ok with the buy out ?
Hard to say, but there are indications that it is in their best interest. Daealic never had much money and two years ago, as a publisher it was quite hard to get access to Steam. That's one reason behind the Deep Silver deal for Chains of Satinav, because it gave them access to Steam. Without that they would probably be out of business now. Also they clearly said before that they wanted to expand their business and publish films or books based on Deponia. For this, they even wanted to set up a new studio somewhere else in Germany. Bastei Lübbe is offering money and expertise in some of these areas, and a distribution network on top of this. So I guess they expect it to be a win-win-situation.
 
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And they could create new games based on Lübbe's books. Maybe Alrik will have some info.

It seems that Blackguards is pretty successfull so I think they will make Blackguards 2 sooner or later. And another adventure from The Dark Eye universe (Drakensang) too.
 
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I have no info yet, I'm sorry. I was surprised by this move myself.

The only thing I can say/add is that there already exists an pen & paper RPG system for the "John Sinclair" franchise / novel series. The rule set rights owner is Ulisses, who also own the rights of the TDE rule set.
 
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