One of the more interesting acquisitions to happen in recent times was the one by Firemint late last year of fellow Melbourne games developer, Infinite Interactive. The announcement arrived with a delightful comic, sparking the imaginations on the possibilities that the joining of these two creative forces would bring.
Unfortunately, that potential was never realised to its fullest and with yesterday's big news on the merger of Firemint and Ironmonkey Studios by EA, many wondered what became of Steve Fawkner and Infinite Interactive portion of Firemint.
As it turns out, the Firemint and Infinite Interactive deal wasn't so much as an acquisition. In a news report by Joystiq, Steve explained what the arrangement with Firemint was...
There was never an actual acquisition of Infinite, it was more of a merger. It was all amicable stuff – as much as it would be fun to have a bit of a scandal. Unfortunately there isn't one...
I think everybody agreed that Infinite does its best work when it's independent, and so we headed back out into the wilderness to work on our own stuff again."
Infinite Interactive quietly split off from Firemint in January, this year, and when Steve was prompted on what the newly independent studio was working on, he revealed that there's a strong possibility that the next game they release will be Puzzle Quest related since he still holds the rights to that property and that he's still passionate about games that have a combination of fantasy, puzzle, strategy and tactical elements.