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Former Blizzard And Sony Executives Open Molten Games
Paul Della Bitta, former global head of e-sports and community at Blizzard, Jungwon Hahn former head of Blizzard's Korean office, and Blaine Smith, who has a history in the Company of Heroes and God of War franchises, have come together to create Molten Games.
The new studio doesn't have any game announcements just yet, but it will be experimenting with the free-to-play model, and is committed to putting, "gameplay first and foremost."
The studio has already received a large investment from NCSoft, but it will not serve as a publisher of its games. Molten will own all of the rights to its original intellectual properties. NCSoft's investment awards the company assorted stock allocations.
You can find out more about the studio, you can check out its official website, as well the full press release announcing the studio and page two.
Our Take
It's hard to get too excited about a new studio that has no games to show. That being said, there is an impressive pedigree of video game industry veterans here who certainly have the capacity to do something cool. We'll just have to wait and see.
Executives from Blizzard, Sony Online and Relic Entertainment Form Molten Games
San Diego Studio Developing AAA Online Game with Initial Multi-Million Dollar Series A Investment Lead by NCSOFT
SAN DIEGO-July 24, 2013- Molten Games, a developer and publisher of online games, announced that the company has received a multi-million dollar investment from Korean gaming powerhouse NCSOFT, leading the way on Molten's Series A funding.
"Molten Games has assembled a wildly talented and experienced team, and we absolutely believe they will create and run an amazing new game experience," said Taek Jin Kim, CEO at NCSOFT. "They're setting the bar high for themselves, with a strong desire to shake up the online gaming space by creating something new and unique in our industry."
Molten Games is centered in San Diego, California. Focused on breaking free from the traditional developer/publisher relationship and putting gameplay first and foremost, the company is continuing to build its talented team and first product, with more information about the game to be released at a later date.
"We created Molten Games in order to truly have control over our game development and IP, and we're going to create something epic," said Jungwon Hahn, CEO and co-founder of Molten Games. "Our team understands not only the creation of online games, but the ongoing management of them, better than anyone else in the industry. As we continue to build our team and work on our initial product, gameplay and player experience is going to come first with every decision."
For more information about the company, please visit http://www.moltengames.com/
About Molten Games, Inc.
Molten Games, Inc. is a developer of premium online video games based in sunny San Diego. Powered by a team of top creative talent from companies including Blizzard Entertainment, Sony Online Entertainment and Relic Entertainment, Molten Games is breaking the traditional developer/publisher mold in order to put gameplay and player experience first and foremost. Molten Games is backed by a multi-million dollar Series A investment from NCSOFT.
About NCSOFT
NCSOFT, headquartered in Seoul, Korea, is the world's premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games, including the critically acclaimed Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, Aion, Lineage, Lineage 2 and Blade & Soul. With offices in North America, Europe, Japan, Taiwan etc, NCSOFT aims at providing fun to everyone, everywhere in the world. More information can be found at www.ncsoft.com.
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