•Romanian gaming company Metagame was acquired by a new global video game developer and publisher, founded by top games executives including Electronic Arts, WB Games, Zynga, and Smule.
•Also founded by gaming veterans, Metagame reached 7 million downloads with their video games Tap Busters: Bounty Hunters and Zombieland: AFK Survival.
•Following the acquisition, the team will focus on creating the next generation of the games-as-a-service model, improving social experiences, and fostering connections.
When Metagame launched, they filled a gap in the local gaming market, convinced that Romania was a great location to start building world class original games, Daniel Nay, Fortis Senior Producer and previous co-founder and CEO of Metagame, tells us.
The founding team’s vast experience in the Romanian gaming industry further helped them build a successful company, and become a target for acquisition for global players. At Fortis, Dan Teodeorescu has joined as a Product Lead, while Radu Pop is the Art Director.
“The experienced founding team helped us put together an incredible group of people that was able to build from scratch and launch successfully a full mobile game in record time and then operate and and grow it for the following 2.5 years. It was this team and its potential to make great products that made us attractive compared to other companies,” Daniel Nay shares.
Metagame further differentiated the product in the local market against established competitors by aiming to create authentic mechanics:
“Many game developers prefer to copy successful games, changing the theme and graphics but keeping most of the mechanics that were proven by other titles. The games we made at Metagame, while being part of established genres, always have at least a set of mechanics different from the ones currently in the market. Along with the one-of-a-kind graphics from our co-founder and award winning artist Noper (aka Radu Pop), this makes the games stand out,” Daniel adds.
As part of Fortis, the former Metagame team will continue to focus on game design innovation and creating social experiences. Fortis’ vision is to bring a positive social impact by nurturing relationships and communities through games.
“The vision driving Fortis is extremely ambitious – we want to create games that challenge minds, build connections and inspire communities, games where you belong. We are iterating on a number of innovative concepts and of course the goal is to bring many of them to market and make this vision a reality,” Daniel tells us.
Fortis is a part of global destination resort developer Las Vegas Sands. As part of its strategy, Fortis has been building the team through acquisition and global hiring. Metagame follows acquisitions of Doppio Games in Portugal and Oktagon Games in Brazil. The company counts more than 150 employees.
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