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RockYou acquires Manchester studio Playdemic

Facebook dev backed by Ian Livingstone sells to US firm

Social games and applications company RockYou has acquired Playdemic, a Facebook game developer based in Manchester.

The studio, which counts Eidos life president Ian Livingstone as a chief investor, created and runs Gourmet Ranch on Facebook, and has a management team of senior execs from THQ, Ubisoft and Eidos.

"At RockYou we place great value on the art of game-making," commented Jonathan Knight, RockYou's SVP of Games, "and we're elated to welcome the Playdemic team into our studio system.

"Playdemic will retain their culture and creative control, as they bring their significant game industry experience to making social games of today and tomorrow."

CEO of Playdemic Paul Gouge will become vice president and general manger of the studio, with initial plans to grow Gourmet Ranch beyond its current half a million users.

"Being a part of RockYou gives us the opportunity to remain creatively independent, while leveraging RockYou's vast network and expertise at scale to reach a wide audience with our games," said Gouge.

"We see a massive opportunity to expand the depth and quality of social games, and have found an ideal partner in RockYou."

Although Rock You recently acquired game engine TirNua, the company confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that Playdemic will not be using the tech in its forthcoming titles.

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Matt Martin

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Matt Martin joined GamesIndustry in 2006 and was made editor of the site in 2008. With over ten years experience in journalism, he has written for multiple trade, consumer, contract and business-to-business publications in the games, retail and technology sectors.