Wargaming Scoops up Gas Powered Games
Well this was certainly unexpected. Today Wargaming.net announced it had purchased Age of Empires Online developers Gas Powered Games. Why you may ask? Well it you haven't been following GPG since Age of Empires Online, you may be unaware of the fact the company attempted a Kickstarter campaign for a new title called Wildman which unfortunately fell far short of its 1.1m goal. During the Kickstarter Chris Taylor, founder of Gas Powered Games revealed the company was not doing so hot. In fact, the developer had to lay off a large portion of their staff earlier this year and it was made clear that Wildman was perhaps the company's last hope for survival.
Now with GPG safely under the protective treads/wings of Wargaming the studio has been given a second chance at life. While we do not know how GPG will operate under its new owners including whether or not they can continue working on current projects like Wildman, we do know Wargaming values GPG's past experience. This is apparent when Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming commented on the matter stating:
“Gas Powered Games’ heritage and development pedigree shows us just how valuable an addition Chris and his company will make to the Wargaming family,” said Victor. “Gas Powered Games has a long track record of providing incredibly engaging AAA gaming experiences and we can’t wait to start working with them.”
It will be interesting to see if Wargaming intends on converting GPG into a solely F2P company or if they will merely be providing the financial muscle needed for GPG to continue making games in general. While GPG's previous title Age of Empires Online was F2P, the company has a long non-F2P history with series like Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander. I suppose all we can do now is wait and see.
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Michael Dunaway has been part of the MMOBomb team for years and has covered practically every major Free-to-Play MMO title since 2009.
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I think Wargaming should be looked at,as in what not to do,they are making mediocre games at best,bribing almost every Gaming review site so their games get rated highest,their stats about how many people are actually playing their game are false,no account gets deleted,even if someone played only 10 minutes about 2 years ago,their account still counts as an "active player".
Their bugged game even got in ESL somehow,it boggles boggles my mind as in how they managed that, I think the purse of a few people there got very heavy,otherwise there is no way in hell that such an unbalanced and bugged game could get in to serious electronic championships and competitions.
I really feel sorry for the people in Gas Powered Games,their entire business model will have to change,and not for the better,just like WG they will cut corners for profits,make promises they will never keep and treat the community like crap.
world of tanks was great for me, as time passed, I got bored of the super grind, of all the tank tweaking and that they didn't have all the countries they wanted to include from the start.
so if war thunder can pull off 3 decent varieties of vehicle sets, world of warplanes might fail and I believe world of warships will just be a complete waste of cash with imminent fail on release
*** so the real point for comment is I hope they have deep pockets, because I think they won't be making much if any profit from warplanes and warships, let alone this game 'wildman' -- if it interests enough these kickstarter projects raise the required funds!!! I'm basing this off large interest = large anticipation.