The Thunderful Group, which is already made up of development studios Image & Form and Zoink Games, has announced that it has now acquired publisher Rising Star Games.
The Sweden-based group was established in December 2017, by Bergsala Holding (the sole distributor of Nintendo products in the Nordic region), Image & Form CEO Brjann Sigurgeirsson, and Zoink Games CEO Klaus Lyngeled. Former Nintendo of Europe staffer Ed Valiente joined the team shortly after, and has now gone on to be the new managing director for Rising Star Games.
Rising Star has offices in the UK and the US and describes itself as “the home of Japanese games”; Thunderful now plans to use Rising Star Games' expertise to bring strong Japanese titles to the west. The company has already released several titles in the western Switch market, and now sits alongside Image & Form (SteamWorld Dig) and Zoink Games (Fe, Stick It to the Man!) in what is fast becoming an indie developer supergroup.
Thunderful and Image & Form CEO Brjann Sigurgeirsson had the following to say about Ed Valiente's role in the team:
“Once he knew what we were planning, getting Ed hooked on the idea was easy. It’s the first time we recruit from outside Sweden, so it’s been a good exercise in dealing with Swedish red tape, housing and what have you. Having him on board is absolutely delightful.”
The partnership certainly seems to be of great benefit to all involved and we're hopeful that this will also be great news for players. If joining forces allows these great studios to grow further, that can only really be a positive thing.
Comments 11
Sweet!
By the way, I started to play "Fe" and I'd say it's a really good game.
I love the atmosphere of this game !
cool, hope they keep at it.
At what point do these guys stop counting as "indie"?
Who could have guessed where those guys are going when Steamworld Tower defense released on the DSi.
Can't wait for their next venture.
@abe_hikura The second they start calling it an "indie supergroup." At that point you just need to face the facts and realize how you have become a big developer.
If the Image & Form guys are willing to join up with you, of course you should jump at that chance. Those guys have proven over and over they know how to make excellent quality games.
Interesting partnership, hopefully they bring more good games to Switch.
@abe_hikura The moment they start shutting down the studios they acquire.
@abe_hikura Indie just means independent, so not owned by a publisher. They can be any size really, it's just commonly associated with being a small team.
@Ogbert true but at this point they have two studios, an distributor, and an iternational publishing label.
This move changes things before Thunderful was just two Indies pooling their resources, now Thunderful IS the publisher, owning other things and if that makes them Indie then EA itself is Indie after all, EA isn't owned by an another publisher.
Not ragging on them, I'm impressed with their progress and I think this is going to help them expand further. Then again I'm not one who really did the "indie cred" thing to begin with, so them being indie or not anymore doesn't matter to me.
@abe_hikura Yeah I think it's arguable that since they set up Thunderful they were no longer 'indie' studios as they exist under that parent company.
But either way, it's all arbitrary labels. They make great games, whether those games are 'indie' or not doesn't really matter. : )
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