The Irish video game company Keywords Studios entered into a conditional acquisition agreement with Smoking Gun, a game studio based in Vancouver. The Canadian game studio currently has 68 employees.
Related: Keywords Studios’ acquisition spree continues with Mighty Games
Smoking Gun was founded by John Johnson, Drew Dunlop, and Angie Pytlewski back in 2007. The studio worked with major publishers such as Microsoft and Netflix Games and has a track of developing, enhancing, and supporting highly rated, cross-platform games for mobile, PC, and console devices.
The studio’s main expertise is in the casual, real-time strategy (RTS) and action genres. Smoking Gun also developed Age of Empires: Castle Siege, which was published on Windows 10, Android, Microsoft Windows, iOS, and Windows Phone.
Bertrand Bodson, CEO of Keywords Studios shared the following message:
“We are delighted to welcome John, Drew, Angie and the highly skilled Smoking Gun team to Keywords. Smoking Gun has a 15 year history of high quality game development and the studio’s expertise in casual and RTS development for mobile games combined with its experience in live operations games support are valuable extensions of our client offering.
“The acquisition builds on our presence in the Vancouver area, which is a rich source of talent and one of North America’s video gaming hubs. We are really looking forward to working with the Smoking Gun team and supporting the studio’s continuing growth as part of the Group.”
John Johnson, Drew Dunlop and Angie Pytlewski of Smoking Gun shared a joint message:
“We are very excited to be joining Keywords. Keywords is an industry leader with an unrivalled range of high quality services which will help accelerate Smoking Gun’s growth and provide opportunities to build, deliver and support more award winning titles.
“We are really looking forward to playing our part in helping to deliver on the strategy of the wider Keywords group by bringing Smoking Gun’s expertise and experience to the Group’s client offering.”
Keywords Studios was founded back in 1998 and the video game company has more than 70 facilities in 24 countries.
