gargantuan-studios posts

The MMO game developer Gazillion Entertainment is making some changes and additions in its executive ranks and also renaming one of its development studios, according to a new press release today. The now formerly named Gargantuan Studios, which is currently making the Marvel Universe super hero MMO game, is now titled Secret Identity.

Gazillion also announced today that David Brevik, formerly the studio director for Secret Identity and the project lead for the Marvel Universe game, has been promoted to Gazillio's new President and COO. Jeff Linde, previously the Senior Development Director of Marvel Universe, has been named the new Studio Head for Secret Identity. Also the company announced it has named Dan Fiden to be its new VP of Publishing. Fiden previously worked as Manager of Playfish San Francisco. Gazillion said he "will be driving the company's focus on digital development and distribution" hinting that the developer is working on web-browser based games.

One of the most extensive MMO game developers just got a new round of funding. Gazillion Entertainment announced today that it raised $60 million from a variety of investors. The press release announcing the funding hints that the money will be used to "enter a key phase of expansion for the company."

So far Gazillion has released just one game, Lego Universe, from its NetDevil studio. NetDevil is still working on its long-in-development space-based MMO Jumpgate Evolution and the company's web site says that there's another unannounced game in the works. Another studio, The Amazing Society, is working on the casual MMO Marvel Super Hero Squad that's due for release in early 2011. Yet another studio, Gargantuan, is working on the large scale Marvel Universe MMO. Finally there's Slipgate Ironworks, the studio headed up by John Romero, which has been working for years on a MMO game that has yet to be announced.

A few months ago we reported on the official public launch of the stealth Gazillion Entertainment, a multi-studio developer that worked mostly on MMO games. Today the company announced that one of their various studios, Gargantuan, will be lead by David Brevik who previously was the president of Blizzard North.

Blizzard North, as many of you may know, created the first two games in the Diablo action-RPG series.Brevik and several of the team's members later left the company to form the now defunct Flagship Studios. Brevik will now lead Gargantuan's efforts to make the upcoming Marvel Universe MMO, the long awaited massively multiplayer game based on the Marvel super hero universe. He will also be attending this week's San Diego Comic-Con where he will be participating in an MMO panel on Thursday.

By John Gaudiosi

According to Rob Hutter, CEO and president of Gazillion Entertainment, the best way to combat Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft, the Goliath of the massively multiplayer online (MMO) game business, is to think bigger. The new privately-held MMO game publisher, based in San Mateo, CA, is focusing on the large untapped mainstream audience that Nintendo has captured with its now-ubiquitous Wii console. Although Gazillion is developing a trio of original mass market MMOs, none of which have been revealed yet, its first two big licensing deals are with Marvel Entertainment and LEGO.