Monumental Picks Up 50% of 50 Cent Developer

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MMO technology creator and CyberSports contractor Monumental Games announced today that it has acquired half of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand developer Swordfish Studios from Activision, marking the second ex-Vivendi studio to be sold off this week.

The studio was one of the many that Activision Blizzard hoped to sell after the Vivendi Games merger, with Swordfish's 50 Cent game among those dropped from the company's publishing slate as it did not fit with Activision's sequel-centric plans.

Monumental picked up Swordfish's 26-person Manchester branch for an undisclosed sum. The fate of the Birmingham office is not yet known, though publisher THQ has signed on to release 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand early next year.

"The Swordfish team is one of the very few developers worldwide to have fully solved the hugely complex issues involved in running and managing the XLSP (Xbox Live! Server Platform) server environments for online console gaming," explained Monumental CEO Rik Alexander.

"This knowledge base will help to consolidate Monumental's position as the market leading online game developer."

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    November 12, 2008 3:36 PM

    Don't play with my emotions here Faylor, are you saying that 50 Cent BOTS is back in development????

    • reply
      November 12, 2008 3:39 PM

      50 Cent BOTS will arrive next year courtesy THQ.

    • reply
      November 12, 2008 5:56 PM

      ... for a second i thought they were making a game with 50 cent fighting alien robots (BOTS)...

    • reply
      November 12, 2008 10:42 PM

      It was never cancelled. Like the article said and Faylor mentioned in that comment. THQ has picked up the publishing rights to the 50 Cent game.

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