Trickstar Games acquires Sector3 Games

Company
Trickstar Games

Australian based games development studio Trickstar Games has acquired the casual game developer Sector3 Games. Sector 3 will assist Trickstar Games to broaden its business model into the lucrative casual and online games market.

"With this strategic acquisition we are bringing an extremely talented new game studio into the Trickstar Games family. We have aggressive plans to expand our social gaming footprint and the addition of Sector3 and its established games will significantly expand Trickstar’s capabilities and product portfolio this year." said Tony Parkes, Studio Head.

Sector3 Games was established in January 2007, as an Indie Games Division of Sector3 Pty Ltd, and shipped its first game title, TURRET WARS, for both OSX and Windows in April 2007. Since then Sector3 has released numerous games on Mac, PC, iPhone and Online (including Facebook and other social gaming websites). As part of this new alliance “StuntMANIA”, Sector3’s most prominent title is currently poised for release on specific console platforms. "I am very excited to be joining a company that shares my philosophy and vision for casual gaming and I am looking forward to creating great games together,” said Seon Rozenblum, founder of Sector3.

About Trickstar Games

Trickstar Games ( www.trickstargames.com) is a relatively new Melbourne, Australia based studio formed in November 2009. Trickstar are currently developing the recently announced “International Cricket 2010” for Codemasters on Sony’s PlayStation 3 & Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and a yet to be announced game title for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

About Sector3 Games

Sector3 ( www.sector3.com.au) is a leading Australian casual games developer, specialising in iPhone, Mac, PC & online game. Since 2007 Sector3 Games has successfully produced a vast range of games for all leading online and casual platforms.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 02/05/10 - 10:49 AMPermalink

How can Trickstar be Australia's newest *and* most experienced developer? If you're new, then you're not experienced. If you're a company who employs a bunch of people who have considerable experience, then would you be Australia's newest developer made up of experienced developer/s. "Newest AND most experienced" sounds plainly stupid.

Company promo is fail.

Submitted by souri on Wed, 05/05/10 - 3:34 PMPermalink

That's just standard company promo procedure, really. Every company needs to talk themselves up, even if it is a half-truth.

If you look at most of the local game devs, most of them will describe themselves as a "leading Australian game developer", which might be factually true for what platform, genre, game type etc that they do.

I can understand that "Newest and most experienced" might sound contradictory on the face of it, but just as you've described, they are a new company consisting of experienced developers, so that moniker does make sense.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 02/05/10 - 2:12 PMPermalink

I.R Gurus became Transmission Games who then shut down and layed off all staff late 2009. Almost overnight a number of "Ex-Transmission" staff reopened as the new studio Trickstar.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 03/05/10 - 5:11 PMPermalink

[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
Domain Name: TRICKSTARGAMES.COM
Creation Date: 25-sep-2009
...
Transmission Games let go a third of staff
Posted: Saturday, 3 October 2009 - 12:22am
http://tsumea.com/australasia/australia/news/021009/transmission-games-…
...
Transmission Games goes into receivership, sheds staff
Posted: Wednesday, 21 October 2009 - 1:39pm
http://tsumea.com/australasia/australia/news/201009/transmission-games-…

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 05/05/10 - 1:49 PMPermalink

Does this mean that they had people working for the last month knowing they were planning to close down?
I know several people who struggled to pay their rent because they had not been paid by transmission. Eventually they got paid by the taxpayer (geers scheme). I don't like the thought that my tax dollars are being spent supporting this type of activity.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 05/05/10 - 4:40 PMPermalink

Yep, then the company seniors moved to the new company. Sold the IP to it cheap. Debt problem solved.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 06/05/10 - 6:45 AMPermalink

Well if the IP produced by this 'New' company are anything like the last lot of titles that came from IR, I wouldn't expect them to stay in business for very long.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 06/05/10 - 8:40 AMPermalink

HOE and Ashes did respectably well, and are still selling... If you're in the business of making money, and I suspect Trickstar are. Then I imagine they'll be fine.
Course the dodgy dealings won't resonate well for future recruitment... If there's a choice of employer.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 06/05/10 - 9:55 AMPermalink

The development of HOE killed the company, which is well and publicly documented. The game still sells and the IP is still in the hands of those who created it.

You can easily infer that management knew well in advance that they weren't going to be able to pull out of the dive (pun intended) and had decided to write the place off strategically. They transferred all original IP and "tech" to a new company (trickstar) and washed their hands of responsibility.

To the consumer all this is irrelevant.

A true cowboy industry, wouldn't wanna work anywhere else!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 06/05/10 - 11:50 AMPermalink

The HoE IP was never owned by transmission, it was owned by another company (that one of the transmision owners also part-owned). Transmission licensed the IP from them. So yes, the IP is still in the hands of those who created it :P
The game might still be selling, but I doubt it's going to have an amazingly long fluffy tail. The impression i get from vgchartz (as innaccurate as that might be) is that it hasn't even managed to sell 150,000 over all platforms, which is a total failure for the budget it cost. Even with the final publisher picking it up on the dirt cheap, they probably still haven't made their money back on it yet. Doubt anyone will be seeing royalty cheques for that game.

The important thing is that they managed to pull some fancy strings to get the viable projects transferred to the new company (for pretty much nothing from what i hear). So that they can make some money off the backs of the people who worked on them at transmission, AND THEN NOT EVEN CREDIT ALL THOSE PEOPLES HARD WORK WHEN THEY ARE RELEASED.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 06/05/10 - 11:45 AMPermalink

Sorry to disagree, but we should stamp out the cowboys.
I love this industry and tolerating immoral or illegal business practises is absolutely unacceptable.

It does not represent the majority of Australian developers.

It tarnishes our image with government and diminishes our credibility.

It damages the very people that make up our industry.

As an industry we should present a united front, stating clearly that we are serious and moral business people. Perhaps this could be accomplished through our industry body, the GDAA.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 13/05/10 - 3:26 PMPermalink

My friends went hungry and couldn't pay their rent because Tramission didn't pay them. They didn't want the moral highground, they were only doing their jobs. They had no choice in the matter. They will never recover their unpaid superannuation.

I cannot comprehend anyone criticising a person for advocating moral behaviour. On a base level, acting out of pure self interest may bring individual gratification and short term gains. It also leaves a trail of destruction and misery in it's wake.

That's why we have laws, and indeed morals. They make life better for all of us.