Gazillion Entertainment is most notably recognized for creating MMOs for Disney/Marvel under titles such as Marvel Super Hero Squad Online and Marvel Heroes until they had to shut down both projects in 2017 after the revocation of it's 10-year license in November of last year. The buyout for California-based Trion Worlds will include Gazillion's remaining licenses, trademarks, patents and domains, as well as all finished games within their library.
With this acquisition, Trion Worlds will have more tools at the disposal of their developers as they gain not only licenses and complete games, but also the wealth of knowledge and analytics the team at Gazillion has gathered during it's tenure as an active MMO game developer. One of the most important factors to the buyout, was including the game engine that Gazillion owned, which allowed easier development of isometric games, an essential engine for the Action Role-Playing Game (ARPG) genre.
Trion Worlds, creators of its own titles such as Rift, Trove, and Defiance, are looking to help work with developers to bring their games to life using the Trion platform. They want to provide game developers with the information, analytics, as well as the tools and game engines that are needed to push games to the publishing stage, as it has done so in the past when they helped publish XL Games' ArcheAge.
"We've built an amazing ecosystem in support of our games and those we've published. We're excited to add more tools to our library in order to embolden our teams and partners to create truly fantastic games...Our suite of vital technology and experience in publishing and operation at a global scale allows us to provide essential 'ecosystem as a service' support, empowering developers from all ove rthe world to create all new AAA online experiences, sustain their studios in very crowded markets, and take more creative risks." -Scot Hartsman, Trion Worlds CEO
Bluehole Ginno Games developed a Diablo-esque Action MMORPG, Devilian, which in turn was published by Trion Worlds, and because of it's moderate success, was eventually able to release PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), and the rest they say, is history. Hartsman said they received gratitude from them as Trion had helped teach them how to run live games.