Focus Home Interactive has acquired a controlling stake in retro game developer and publisher Dotemu. The €38.5 million deal sees Focus Home take on 77.5% of the share capital, with the remaining 22.5% retained by Dotemu CEO Cyrille Imebrt. The deal is expected to
Best known in recent years for Streets of Rage 4, Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap, and the revival of Windjammers, Dotemu has become a pillar of the retro gaming community. They’ve both remade classic games and made modern sequels to retro titles, acting either as developer or publisher. Dotemu will retain it’s own editorial control to follow the paths that have led it to its current success and plans for the future.
In addition to joining the executive committee of the Focus Home Interactive Group, Imbert will be appointed managing director of a newly created indie games publishing division, which will unite Dotemu’s The Arcade Crew indie label with Focus’ recently acquired Spotlight label.
Of the acquisition, Dotemu CEO Cyrille Imbert said:
Joining the Focus Home Interactive Group was an obvious choice for Dotemu. We share the same passion for video games, the same desire to improve, as well as the same values of respect and benevolence towards our partners and teams. While continuing its activities, this new collaboration will allow Dotemu to benefit from the incontestable expertise of Focus Home Interactive’s teams for the production of AA titles and thus launch the production of future remakes or sequels on licenses of first-generation 3D consoles (the games of the early 2000s).
While retaining the editorial and strategic independence that has made it so successful, Dotemu will be able to give even greater ambition to its projects and give itself the means to broaden the range of services offered to studios, in order to guarantee the success of their productions on the retro label as well as on the publishing label The Arcade Crew. Therefore, Dotemu is ideally positioned to achieve its ambitious growth plan to triple its turnover in the medium term. My mission will also be to share Dotemu’s expertise with Focus Home Interactive’s teams, to select and convince talented teams to join the Group in order to build, together, a key player in the video game industry on a global scale.
Source: Focus Home Interactive