Sumo Group

Last updated

Sumo Group Limited
Company type Subsidiary
FoundedDecember 2017;7 years ago (2017-12)
Headquarters
Sheffield
,
England
Key people
Carl Cavers (CEO)
Number of employees
1,400 [1]  (2023)
Parent Tencent (2022–present)
Subsidiaries
Website Official website OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Sumo Group Limited is a British video game holding company based in Sheffield. It was formed in December 2017 as the parent company for Sumo Digital and Atomhawk, followed by its initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange later that month. Another of Sumo Group's subsidiaries is Secret Mode, a publisher established in March 2021. After purchasing a minority stake in Sumo Group in November 2019, Tencent wholly acquired the company in January 2022.

Contents

History

Carl Cavers, Paul Porter, Darren Mills and James North-Hearn, four former members of the defunct Infogrames Studios, established the developer Sumo Digital in 2003. [2] It was bought by Foundation 9 Entertainment in March 2008 before Cavers, Porter, Mills and Chris Stockwell completed a management buyout of the studio in November 2014. [3] [4] Ian Livingstone served as chairman from 2015 to 2022. [5] In December 2017, Sumo Group was formed in December 2017 as the parent company for Sumo Digital and its Atomhawk subsidiary. Sumo Group had its initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange's (LSE) AIM market later that month. [6] [7]

In November 2019, the Chinese conglomerate Tencent acquired 15 million shares of Sumo Group, representing a 10% stake. [8] Sumo Group acquired Pipeworks Studios in October 2020 and opened a publishing label, Secret Mode, in March 2021. [9] [10] In July that year, Tencent and Sumo Group agreed that Tencent would, through its subsidiary Sixjoy Hong Kong Limited, wholly acquire the company for £5.13 per share (143.3% of the shares' previous closing price of £3.58), totalling £919 million. At the time, Tencent was Sumo Group's second-largest shareholder at 8.75%. [11] [12]

In September 2021, Sumo Group acquired Auroch Digital, a Bristol-based developer, £6 million. [13] Tencent's acquisition was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States in December 2021, followed by the High Court of Justice on 13 January 2022. Sumo Group was consequently delisted from the LSE on 17 January and became a subsidiary of Tencent through the latter's Sixjoy Hong Kong Limited holding subsidiary. [14] On July 21, 2022, Sumo Group sold Pipeworks Studios to RuneScape developer Jagex for an undisclosed sum. [15] In September 2023, it was announced Sumo Group had acquired the Leamington Spa-based game development studio, Midoki. [16]

On June 11, 2024, the company announced it would be laying off up to 15% of its workforce and shutting down Timbre Games. [17] [18]

Subsidiaries

Related Research Articles

Jagex Limited is a British video game developer and publisher based at the Cambridge Science Park in Cambridge, England. It is best known for RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, both free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The company's name is derived from the company's original slogan, "Java Gaming Experts".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epic Games</span> American video game company

Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland. Following its first commercial video game release, ZZT (1991), the company became Epic MegaGames, Inc. in early 1992 and brought on Mark Rein, who has been its vice president since. After moving the headquarters to Cary in 1999, the studio changed its name to Epic Games.

Eidos Interactive Limited was a British video game publisher based in Wimbledon, London. Among its franchises were Championship Manager, Deus Ex, Hitman, Thief and Tomb Raider. Domark was founded by Mark Strachan and Dominic Wheatley in 1984. In 1995, it was acquired by software company Eidos. Ian Livingstone, who held a stake in Domark, became executive chairman of Eidos and held various roles including creative director. Eidos took over U.S. Gold in 1996, which included developer Core Design, and merged its operations including Domark, which created publishing subsidiary Eidos Interactive. The company acquired Crystal Dynamics in 1998, and owned numerous other assets. In 2005, parent Eidos was taken over by games publisher SCi. The combined company, SCi Entertainment Group, which was briefly renamed Eidos, was itself taken over by Square Enix in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sumo Digital</span> British video game developer

Sumo Digital Ltd. is a British video game developer based in Sheffield and the principal subsidiary of Sumo Group since 2017. The company was founded in 2003 by four former members of the management team of Infogrames Studios.

Foundation 9 Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game company based in Irvine, California. The company was formed in March 2005 through the merger of video game developers Backbone Entertainment and The Collective.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pipeworks Studios</span> American video game developer

Pipeworks Studios is an American video game developer based in Eugene, Oregon. The company was founded in November 1999 by Dan White and Dan Duncalf and works to provide full development, co-development, and live operations to video game publishers and other partners, in addition to creating original IPs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tencent</span> Chinese conglomerate holding company

Tencent Holdings Ltd. is a Chinese multinational technology conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the world's largest company in the video game industry based on its equity investments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kalypso Media</span> German video game publisher

Kalypso Media Group is a German video game developer and publisher. Founded in 2006 in Worms, the group includes four companies in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States and has studios, including Realmforge Studios, Gaming Minds Studios, Claymore Game Studios, and Nine Worlds Studios. Kalypso is best known for publishing Tropico, Sudden Strike, Dungeons and Railway Empire series.

Team17 Group plc is a British video game developer and publisher based in Wakefield, England. The venture was created in December 1990 through the merger of British publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish developer Team 7. At the time, the two companies consisted of and were led by Michael Robinson, Martyn Brown and Debbie Bestwick, and Andreas Tadic, Rico Holmes and Peter Tuleby, respectively. Bestwick later became Team17's chief executive officer until 1 January 2024. After their first game, Full Contact (1991) for the Amiga, the studio followed up with multiple number-one releases on that platform and saw major success with Andy Davidson's Worms in 1995, the resulting franchise of which still remains as the company's primary development output, having developed over 20 entries in it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coffee Stain Studios</span> Swedish video game developer

Coffee Stain Studios AB is a Swedish video game developer based in Skövde. Founded in 2010 by nine University of Skövde students, the company is best known for Goat Simulator, which was released in April 2014, and Satisfactory, released in September 2024. Their parent holding company also operates Coffee Stain Publishing, a publisher, and majority-owns developers Coffee Stain North and Lavapotion. In November 2018, the Coffee Stain group was acquired by THQ Nordic AB.

The Chinese Room is a British video game developer based in Brighton that is best known for exploration games. The company originated as a mod team for Half-Life 2, based at the University of Portsmouth in 2007, and is named after John Searle's Chinese room thought experiment. In August 2018, it became a subsidiary of Sumo Digital.

THQ Nordic GmbH is an Austrian video game publisher based in Vienna. Formed in 2011, it is a publishing subsidiary of Embracer Group. Originally named Nordic Games, as was the parent company, both companies were renamed THQ Nordic in August 2016 after the parent company had acquired the "THQ" trademark in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mediatonic</span> British video game developer

Mediatonic Limited is a British video game developer based in London. The company was founded in September 2005 by Brunel University students Dave Bailey and Paul Croft, releasing their first game, Snowman Salvage in December that year. Initially a work-for-hire studio for Flash games, Mediatonic has developed original games for other platforms, including Murder by Numbers and Fall Guys. As of June 2020, Mediatonic employs 230 people in four studios and is part of Tonic Games Group, which is a subsidiary of Epic Games since March 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leyou</span> Chinese video game holding company

Leyou Technologies Holdings Limited is a Chinese video game holding company based at Lippo Centre, Admiralty, Hong Kong. Founded in 2010, the company originally dealt with poultry through its subsidiary Fujian Sumpo, which had been founded in 1998. After floating on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in January 2011, poultry-based income started to fall in 2013. It agreed to buy a majority stake in the video game developer Digital Extremes in October 2014, renamed itself Leyou in January 2015, and completed the acquisition later that year. It acquired Splash Damage in July 2016 before divesting its poultry business in August, majority-acquired Radiance Games, and invested in Certain Affinity in 2017, and established Athlon Games in 2018. In December 2020, Leyou was acquired by Tencent.

Auroch Digital is a British video game developer based in Bristol, England. It previously ran the GameTheNews initiative, a project that produced news games on a variety of topics, for which it was included in the 2014 Nominet 100 list of companies doing social good with technology. In September 2021, Auroch Digital was acquired by Sumo Group for $8.3 million.

Krafton Inc. is a South Korean video game publisher and holding company based in Bundang District, Seongnam. It was created in November 2018 to serve as the parent company for Bluehole, founded by Chang Byung-gyu in Seoul in March 2007, and its subsidiaries. The company has published several notable video game titles including TERA, PUBG: Battlegrounds, New State Mobile,The Callisto Protocol and Moonbreaker. According to Forbes, Chang has a net worth of $2.9 billion and is one of the seven gaming billionaires in South Korea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SockMonkey Studios</span> British video game studio

Behaviour UK - North is a British video game developer, founded by Teesside University graduates Bob Makin and Darren Cuthbert, in Middlesbrough, North East England.

References

  1. ↑ "Home | Sumo Group". www.sumogroupltd.com.
  2. ↑ "Interview: Paul Porter, Sumo Digital". MCV/Develop . 4 September 2017. Archived from the original on 19 July 2021. Retrieved 19 July 2021.
  3. ↑ Boyes, Emma (17 August 2007). "Foundation 9 wrestles with Sumo Digital". GameSpot . Archived from the original on 6 February 2018. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
  4. ↑ Rose, Mike (11 November 2014). "Sumo Digital has separated from its parent company". Gamasutra . Archived from the original on 14 February 2017. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
  5. ↑ Handrahan, Matthew (22 September 2015). "Ian Livingstone CBE joins Sumo Digital". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  6. ↑ Dunkley, Daniel (8 October 2017). "Games designers line up £150m float". The Times . Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
  7. ↑ Bounds, Andy (6 December 2017). "Games developer Sumo to seek listing on UK's Aim market". Financial Times .
  8. ↑ Batchelor, James (15 November 2019). "Tencent buying 10% of Sumo Group". GamesIndustry.biz . Archived from the original on 15 November 2019. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
  9. ↑ Handrahan, Matthew (30 September 2020). "Sumo Group acquires Pipeworks for $100m". GamesIndustry.biz . Archived from the original on 31 March 2021. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
  10. ↑ Kerr, Chris (11 March 2021). "Sumo Group launches Secret Mode to publish in-house and indie projects". Gamasutra . Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
  11. ↑ Kerr, Chris (19 July 2021). "Tencent agrees to buy UK game company Sumo Group for $1.27 billion". Gamasutra . Archived from the original on 19 July 2021. Retrieved 19 July 2021.
  12. ↑ Takahashi, Dean (19 July 2021). "Tencent has agreed to buy video game maker Sumo Group for $1.27B". VentureBeat . Archived from the original on 19 July 2021. Retrieved 19 July 2021.
  13. ↑ Partis, Danielle (14 September 2021). "Sumo acquires Auroch Digital". GamesIndustry.biz . Archived from the original on 14 September 2021. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  14. ↑ Batchelor, James (17 January 2022). "UK High Court approves Tencent's Sumo acquisition". GamesIndustry.biz . Archived from the original on 17 January 2022. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  15. ↑ "Jagex acquires Pipeworks Studio to grow in North America". VentureBeat. 21 July 2022. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
  16. ↑ Writer, Sophie McEvoy Staff (5 September 2023). "Sumo acquires mobile developer Midoki". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 5 September 2023.
  17. ↑ "Sumo Group to reduce staff by up to 15%". GamesIndustry.biz . 11 June 2024. Retrieved 11 June 2024.
  18. 1 2 Chalk, Andy (11 June 2024). "One day after trumpeting its big Summer Game Fest reveals, Sumo Group is laying off 15% of its workers and closing Timbre Games". PC Gamer. Retrieved 12 June 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.