GarageGames Acquires BraveTree

Officials from Oregon-based independent publisher and developer GarageGames have announced that the company has acquired developer BraveTree Productions, as part of its ongoing process of expansion and a desire to create a wider range of console and online downloadable games. BraveTree, which has three main employees who were formerly developers at Sierra's Dynamix studio, is already a part of the GarageGames community, where it is best known for creating independent title ThinkTanks, which uses GarageGames' Torque engine for PC, Mac, and Linux. Other GarageGames titles including Marble Blast are now available via the currently under-publicized Xbox Live Arcade service, which allows 'casual' or smaller-scale titles to be downloaded for an online payment of $10-20. But with the Xbox 360 believed to have a more robustly built-in Xbox Live Arcade service as default, and other independent titles such as Wik & The Fable Of Souls in development for Xbox 360 Live Arcade, GarageGames, best known itself for Torque, is taking advantage of this coming opportunity by acquiring BraveTree. "With the expanded opportunities like Xbox 360, it was natural to want to include the BraveTree team. This allows us to work together to support our mutual passion for making fun games – benefiting both of us with increased creative collaboration as well as putting more energy and investment directly into games," said Mark Frohnmayer, newly promoted president of GarageGames. "Getting to focus just on creating games without the distractions of running an indie studio fulfills our original purpose in founding BraveTree," said Joe Maruschak, former Creative Director of BraveTree Productions and currently GarageGames' Creative Director. "The way GarageGames is structured will give us the opportunity to contribute to the success of the games and technology."