Trion Worlds Now Owns Gazillion Entertainment Assets

By Liz Lanier

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Trion Worlds acquired assets from the now-defunct Gazillion Entertainment, according to a report from VentureBeat.

This acquisition includes “all Gazillion licenses, trademarks, patents and domains, in addition to its library of games” as revealed in an interview with  Trion’s CEO, Scot Hartsman. Gazillion’s relationship with Disney ended in November 2017, and their MMO “Marvel Heroes Omega” was shut down not long after.

The assets Gazillion left behind will provide tools for to develop their titles, including a game engine that is easier to develop isometric games, in which the player has a bigger, angled view of the game map.

Trion Worlds is the publisher of the 17-million-players strong “Trove,” which has been compared to “Minecraft” and MMO’s “Rift” and “Defiance.” The new tools will help Trion add to their existing titles and create new games, but they also intend for them to be used by other developers as a part of their partnership program to “make games and succeed and have sustainable life cycles,” according to Hartsman.

“Crunch and burn and lay off is unhealthy,” Hartsman said, referring to the often strained relationships between developers and publishers. “We have tried to do things about it and we want to be a good member of the gaming ecology. We keep trying to do things to help other developers.”

Hartsman hopes that with the new acquisition, Trion Worlds can offer developers a full “ecosystem” of tools to use, including customer service and security features, as they continue to publish games for talented developers.

“We‘ve built an amazing ecosystem in support of our games and those we’ve published. We’re excited to add more tools to our library in order to embolden our teams and partners to create truly fantastic games.”