Nordic Games - Acquires bitComposer Catalog and Jagged Alliance IP

Gorath

Gorath

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Nordic Games acquired the publishing and / or distribution rights for the bitComposer back-catalog and the Jagged Alliance IP

Nordic Games acquires Jagged Alliance and other intellectual properties from bitComposer Entertainment AG

The roundbased strategy classic plus others now part of Nordic Games' portfolio

Vienna/AUSTRIA, 5th of August, 2015:

Nordic Games announced today that it has closed an asset purchase agreement with bitComposer Entertainment AG to acquire the intellectual properties "Jagged Alliance" and other franchises, among those also numerous license- and distribution rights to "Panzer Tactics HD", "North and South", "Giana Sisters - Twisted Dreams", "Citadels", "Bridge Project" to name just a few.

The acquisition itself is being handled by Nordic Games Licensing AB, based in Karlstad, Sweden, whereas the day-to-day business (sales and distribution, evaluation of sequels & new content etc.) will be conducted by Nordic Games GmbH, based in Vienna, Austria.

"The decision to acquire Jagged Alliance was an absolute no-brainer for us", comments Reinhard Pollice, Business & Product Development Director at Nordic Games. "The other titles in said acquisition coupled with the license- and distribution rights to other IPs are a great opportunity to further expand our range of games."

About Jagged Alliance
Jagged Alliance is a tactical strategy game focusing on the player acquiring a squad of mercenaries to finish missions which are heavily focused on tactical combat.

The Jagged Alliance series has received numerous national and international awards since its first appearance in 1994. The second part in particular, Jagged Alliance 2, released in 1999, won a host of accolades and critical acclaim from games media.
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More information.
 
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They bought some IPs from THQ and JoWooD, generally speaking all the cheap ones and some of the mid-price ones. Plus all the sales rights they could find.
Their business model is pretty clever. Buy established IPs with finished product, sell the product through a gazillion digital channels, with little overhead. Then develop new games for carefully chosen IPs.
 
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I hope this means we can finally see the second chapter of Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms.
 
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Now can we hope for a more decent new Jagged Alliance game ?
 
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Edgy said:
How many IPs they own now? They bought THQ and jowood IPs didn't they?
They are like a vacuum cleaner. Sucking all the dust from dead publishers corpses.
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Spoken like that, it sounds like a negative thing.

In truth, they have been doing a pretty good job with their business model. They keep a number of games easily available, which otherwise would be gone from sale, at affordable prices, while actually updating some of them in order to fix some outstanding issues (as an example, they recently updated one of the Red Faction titles to remove the GFW Live use, add some minor bits and pieces, and fix some issues).
They also work on some occasional titles/expansions from the IPs they purchase.
 
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FunktionJCB said:
Spoken like that, it sounds like a negative thing.

In truth, they have been doing a pretty good job with their business model. They keep a number of games easily available, which otherwise would be gone from sale, at affordable prices, while actually updating some of them in order to fix some outstanding issues (as an example, they recently updated one of the Red Faction titles to remove the GFW Live use, add some minor bits and pieces, and fix some issues).
They also work on some occasional titles/expansions from the IPs they purchase.
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That good but what about new ips? (besides the one with the funny name)
 
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henriquejr said:
Now can we hope for a more decent new Jagged Alliance game ?
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I doubt it. Nordic Game's remake of Dungeon Lords was anything but inspiring. Instead of fixing the problems with the game, they changed it into a diablo type game with just as many bugs and balance problems as the original. What Jagged Alliance needs is to be relatively true to the original, have a decent budget, and experienced developers. I just don't see it happening with Nordic Games, who seem like a relative small publisher. Perhaps we'll get lucky, and they'll select some unknown up and coming geniuses, like Jowood did when they decided to produce the original Gothic, but I just wouldn't count on it.
 
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Edgy said:
That good but what about new ips? (besides the one with the funny name)
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They do publish new IPs: The Raven - Legacy of a Master Thief, The Book of Unwritten Tales, ...

Of course, they play it safe, and keep things at small/medium budgets.

It's their thing: keep around older titles at affordable prices (from franchises such as Spellforce, Supreme Commander, Titan Quest, Gothic, Silent Storm, Red Faction, Painkiller, Black Mirror, Darksiders, and more), release expansions/titles from some of these franchises (Spellforce, Painkiller, Gothic/Arcania, …), and publish some select titles from smaller developers.
 
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forgottenlor said:
I doubt it. Nordic Game's remake of Dungeon Lords was anything but inspiring. Instead of fixing the problems with the game, they changed it into a diablo type game with just as many bugs and balance problems as the original.
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To be fair, I'm not sure they're the ones we should point any fingers to.

They didn't develop anything. They simply paid for some more development time from D.W. Bradley and Heuristic Park, in order for them to polish things a bit, and add some of the missing content to the game.
They really didn't do any drastic changes to the game, besides adding some bits of content, and changing the interface a bit (I never tried the multiplayer features).
 
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FunktionJCB said:
They do publish new IPs: The Raven - Legacy of a Master Thief, The Book of Unwritten Tales, …

Of course, they play it safe, and keep things at small/medium budgets.

It's their thing: keep around older titles at affordable prices (from franchises such as Spellforce, Supreme Commander, Titan Quest, Gothic, Silent Storm, Red Faction, Painkiller, Black Mirror, Darksiders, and more), release expansions/titles from some of these franchises (Spellforce, Painkiller, Gothic/Arcania, …), and publish some select titles from smaller developers.
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Well honestly all I really want them to do is to not fuck up Darksiders.
 
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you said:
If you read steam forum book2 is on. Steam forum makes sound like developer acquired rights for shado herectic…
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Thanks for the good news. :)
 
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forgottenlor said:
Perhaps we'll get lucky, and they'll select some unknown up and coming geniuses, like Jowood did when they decided to produce the original Gothic, but I just wouldn't count on it.
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JoWooD wasn't involved in the first Gothic. The first game was published by a company called Shoebox, which was a joint venture between Egmont-Ehapa and dtp.

Nordic signed some upcoming geniuses named Piranha Bytes to create Elex.
 
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I think Nordic are doing a really good job at updating the guild 2 and red faction. They have also announced the guild 3 and shown interest in darksiders 3 and a few other projects. When I asked a nordic mod why fix guild 2 after all these years. His response was simple it was broke and Nordic felt it could be fixed quite easily. This is a good news if you own Heretic Kingdoms. Finally book 2.
 
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FunktionJCB said:
To be fair, I'm not sure they're the ones we should point any fingers to.

They didn't develop anything. They simply paid for some more development time from D.W. Bradley and Heuristic Park, in order for them to polish things a bit, and add some of the missing content to the game.
They really didn't do any drastic changes to the game, besides adding some bits of content, and changing the interface a bit (I never tried the multiplayer features).
Click to expand...

No, in all fairness the game had new graphics, new balance, and was much less difficult. The balance between magic and combat, which functioned pretty well in the original game, was completely unbalanced in favor of combat in the remake. The game was also much less polished than the older collector's edition, which had its own share of bugs. Heuristic Park may deserve the lion's share of the blame for the sloppiness, but if Nordic game did any Q&A or testing, its hard to see.

Edit:I'm probably over emotionally involved in this argument as I like every Bradley game, even though it is apparent since Wizards and Warriors, that he is strongly in need of a publisher who provides him structure, tests his products, and puts pressure on him to deliver a polished product. I'm sure he's mostly to blame for the sad state of his games, but I wish Nordic had recognized that and given him the testers he needed to get his game in shape.
 
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Gorath said:
JoWooD wasn't involved in the first Gothic. The first game was published by a company called Shoebox, which was a joint venture between Egmont-Ehapa and dtp.

Nordic signed some upcoming geniuses named Piranha Bytes to create Elex.
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Thanks for the correction. Then Shoebox deserves the credit for getting lucky enough to sign Prianha Bytes way back when.
 
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forgottenlor said:
Thanks for the correction. Then Shoebox deserves the credit for getting lucky enough to sign Prianha Bytes way back when.
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Actually they didn't sign PB. ;)
PB was bought mid development by Phenomedia AG. They made the deal with Shoebox.
 
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What is this-- the 4th or 5th "owner" of JA IP? It's an investment... They are banking on the franchise getting rebooted at some point so they can make a profit from the IP, nothing more. You collect enough trash bin IPs at bargain prices, eventually you'll find gold.
 
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Well, this news got me excited and sad at the very same moment. To do the Jagged Alliance 3 you need lots of cash and passion and very talented crew. Just look at numerous projects like Hired Guns, JA: Back In Action series and most recent JA: Flashback and then compare these poor games with JA 2 or with mod v.1.13.... Just look at the amount of voice acting, quests, guns, NPCs, mercs with personality, maps, items, replayability and so on.... You can't make good Jagged Alliance game on a budget less than $10 million. That's how it was back in 1999 and that's how it is now. Yes, it's cheaper to make games now thanks to ready engines and big libraries with sound effects, 3D objects, etc., but in order to impress gamers for a next decade you need to create a spectacular game. Too bad Nordic Games won't have any willingness to do that.
 
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