Sumo Digital (or more accurately their parent company Sumo Group) are expanding yet again, this time adding the multiple award winning The Chinese Room to the collective team of developers. This now brings the total number of studios in the group to five.
After the widespread praise for games like Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and Dear Esther, which pioneered the ‘walking simulator’ genre, The Chinese Room has existed more in name than anything else since “going dark” last September. The decision at the time was one of prudence, laying off all staff until such a time that games they were prototyping were ready for more people to work on them. Just Dan Pinchbeck, Jessica Curry and Andrew Crawshaw remained to work on prototyping The 13th Interior and a move away from walking sims, but Crawshaw left to pursue other projects last month.
While the studio has been acquired by Sumo Group, Dan Pinchbeck will be the Creative Director. He said, “I’m thrilled to be joining Sumo Digital, a network of studios I’ve a huge amount of respect for. Sumo will provide the support and experience I’m looking for to take The Chinese Room to the next level. Our aim is to build on the reputation I’m proud to have earned, to create a truly world-class studio delivering bold, imaginative new games. We’re already working on some really fantastic new concepts, alongside discussions with partners about some of the games we already have in the pipeline. The future for the studio is incredibly exciting and being part of the Sumo family is absolutely central to that.”
Source: Sumo Group
MrYd
They haven’t really acquired The Chinese Room, have they? They were down to 3 people last year, one left, and Jessica Curry seems to have left as well to be an independent composer (and good luck to her – that EGttR music was gorgeous)
So they’ve basically hired 1 person. And the name he used for something he’s now not going to do anyway.
ron_mcphatty
Bless him, he uses a lot of ‘we’ and ‘our’ for a company of one man. I hope he isn’t too lonely!