EA acquires mobile “hardcore” game company Industrial Toys

Electronic Arts has just bought the rights to a new game developer called Industrial Toys, a game company known for developing mobile games. EA just acquired the 14-man team and they’ll be joining EA’s Worldwide Studios Organization, which currently houses other devs like Respawn Entertainment, BioWare, and Motive Studios.

Industrial Toys was founded in 2012 by an ex-Bungie person of interest. In fact, he was the founder of Bungie. That’s right. Alex Seropian and Tim Harris along with Brent Pease. Seropian and his team founded the company to make games for the touchscreen market and that their goal was to “make more hardcore games for mobile platforms” based on an interview with Joystiq.

Their studio has so far focused just on mobile games with their most popular title being Midnight Star, which is a first-person gallery shooter for iOS released in 2015. Its popularity has lead to the game to great heights with its multiple DLC packs- Midnight Rises and Midnight Star: Renegade. EA Worldwide Studios Group GM and SVP Samantha Ryan states:

“We’re thrilled to have them join our studio organization, pursue new ideas together and bring amazing new games to our players.”

So far, we don’t know what Industrial Toys’ first project will be- whether they’ll develop their own franchise with the company’s properties or continuing their current portfolio of games. EA isn’t shy about buying out companies. They’ve recently bought Respawn Entertainment and also bought the cloud-streaming technology rights from GameFly earlier this year in May. They’ve also made deals with ESPN to create an eMLS for FIFA 18, and Disney XD  to broadcast competitive Madden streams.