The Collective and Backbone Entertainment to merge

[Romier S]

Most here would know The Collective from thier work on the excellent Buffy the Vampire Slayer game on the Xbox (the original, not the crappy sequel.). They have also worked on the most recent Indiana Jones game on the Xbox and PC. Backbone is a little less known but thier current project, Death Jr., is due on the PSP very soon and has been getting some really good buzz in the press.

 

These two indie developers have now announced thier intention to merge! The new studio will house over 300 employees and be renamed as Foundation 9 Entertainment. You can read the full details along with a short interview here .

 

ndie dev shops Backbone Entertainment and The Collective today signaled to the industry their intent to merge. Citing economies of scale that will make them more competitive and financially streamlined, the two studios will form a new company called Foundation 9 Entertainment. The new studio will employ more than 300 people and will have offices in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Vancouver, Boston, and Newport Beach, California.

[Romier S]

Foundation 9 is already growing only after a month of existence. Gamespot has the story:

 

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/04/12/news_6122143.html

 

Foundation 9 Entertainment, which is less than a month old, has added a third studio to its organization. At the end of March, independent studios Backbone Entertainment and The Collective merged to form Foundation 9. Today, the company announced that it would be incorporating Pipeworks Software into its rapidly growing structure.

 

Pipeworks Software, founded in Eugene, Oregon, in 1999, is known for bringing Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee to the Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft Xbox. The company is staffed by a number of former members of the now defunct Sierra Studios, including Mark Crowe, cocreator of the Space Quest series of computer games