SLUSH: Both companies are present at Europe’s leading startup event Slush in Helsinki, on Nov 30 – Dec 1 2016
IGDA: Companies are co-sponsoring the IGDA December Gathering in Helsinki, Club Maxine on Dec 13 2016
Kajaani & Helsinki, Finland 29.11.2016 – Finnish gaming studios Critical Force and Reforged Studios are entering into a strategic partnership. Their common objective is for both companies’ games to reach top positions in the global eSports market. Critical Force has a $4.5M seed investment, and Reforged Studios has a $2.5M backing.
The Global eSports market revenue is estimated to exceed 1 billion dollars in 2017. Mobile eSports has quickly become an integral part of the eSports market and these gaming communities are growing at speed. Furthermore, the new generation of gamers is playing games on their phones more than on any other device, providing a rapidly growing audience for competitive mobile gaming and eSports.
The founder of Critical Force Veli-Pekka Piirainen and the CEO and Co-founder of Reforged Studios Teemu Vilén recognized that the companies share common goals. “We are both developing games and services for mobile eSports, but our two games are not in direct competition. Working together allows us to explore a whole new range of possibilities never seen before in the gaming industry. Our ambition is to share valuable resources, such as services and tools, office spaces and even key personnel to build solutions to shared problems. We are expecting synergies in sharing know-how in recruitment, the development process and community management among other areas.”
Founder of Critical Force Veli-Pekka Piirainen continues:
“The Reforged team has an extremely strong background in multiplayer games and in developing some of the world’s most well-known eSports brands. Their team members have been part of developing League of Legends, StarCraft 2, World of Warcraft and Battlefield series among others. We can now utilize this experience to further develop Critical Ops. We are seeing a wide range of joint possibilities also in terms of marketing, and for example organizing our tournaments.”
CEO of Reforged Studios Teemu Vilén concludes:
“Critical Ops has only been soft launched and it has already been downloaded 10 million times. Their excellence in community management has brought in great results and they have the right attitude. Mobile eSports is an open door to a new gaming frontier. Hardcore gamers are eagerly waiting for better content for their smartphones and tablets, and mobile devices bring competitive gaming to an increasingly larger and broader gamer audience. Joining forces is a win to both our player bases.”
More information
Critical Force / Veli-Pekka Piirainen, veli-pekka@criticalforce.fi
Reforged Studios / Teemu Vilén, tvilen@reforgedstudios.com
http://criticalforce.fi/presskit/
http://reforgedstudios.com/for-media/
Critical Force
Critical Force has soft launched their free-to-play FPS game Critical Ops. The super popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is an ideological forefather of Critical Ops. However, Critical Ops has been developed solely for mobile phones and tablets instead of PCs. Critical Ops is rapidly getting to be the go-to FPS game for professional gamers of the mobile generation. Critical Force was awarded as The Best Finnish Game Developer of the Year and received a 4 million Euro funding from the Korean game publishing conglomerate NHN Entertainment.
Reforged Studios
Reforged Studios is a game studio founded in 2015. It has offices in Helsinki and Los Angeles. The twenty member team is built from industry veterans who have been developing international hit franchises such as League of Legends, StarCraft 2, World of Warcraft, Need for Speed, EVE Online and Walking Dead: No Man’s Land. Reforged Studios is developing realtime multiplayer games for the mobile generation. Their first game will be released in 2017. Reforged Studios have an investment from the Chinese Internet giant NetEase Capital, Sisu Game Ventures and Finnish government backed Tekes.