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Games tech company Improbable has announced an extended partnership with Google Cloud. The extension sees Improbable and Google Cloud partner “to improve solutions and reduce cost and risk for multiplayer game developers”.
The partnership will also see the companies work together to help Google Cloud customers making multiplayer games “explore how SpatialOS can reduce their risk and speed up gameplay iteration, testing and improvement, even for challenging and innovative game designs”. According to Improbable, this “enables developers to reduce their project’s risk by iterating on gameplay faster, designing and experimenting more flexibly, and launching with a managed solution for online games”.
“We were initially attracted to Google Cloud for the quality of its network and infrastructure, and through the course of our partnership have seen that our values and our visions for games are aligned,” said Lincoln Wallen, CTO, Improbable. “Whether we are supporting game developers or building our own games, Google Cloud ensures scalability and access to computational power, while empowering our team to deliver better experiences to SpatialOS users.”
“Improbable has moved from proving its technology to supporting and simplifying development across the range of online multiplayer games, and Google Cloud is proud to be a part of that ongoing journey,” said Thomas Remy, UKI head of telecommunications, media & entertainment, Google Cloud. “Everyday, our cloud technology enables Improbable to more efficiently scale their technology, drive innovation in game development and build and test the next generation of cloud-based games.”
Improbable also recently announced it is teaming up with Tencent Cloud for a “strategic partnership that extends Improbable’s involvement in the hugely important Chinese games market”. “Ever since we opened our first China office in 2018, Improbable has been working, steadily and carefully, to build relationships with the most talented and influential players in the Chinese games industry,” the company explained. “China is an amazing but challenging opportunity for our company, and we know that our ability to make the right partnerships is critical.”
Improbable recently acquired multiplayer games services company, The Multiplayer Guys, for an undisclosed sum. Despite the acquisition – which sees The Multiplayer Guys become a wholly-owned, independently-operated subsidiary of Improbable – the company will “maintain their current focus on supporting their current and future customers in delivering great multiplayer experiences, using a wide range of services, best practices and industry-standard tools”, as well as “providing fully scalable server/client architecture, synchronous and asynchronous peer-to-peer networking, live operations and other services”.
Improbable also recently acquired Midwinter Entertainment, developer of the upcoming online action-shooter, Scavengers. The Seattle-based team – led by former Halo franchise creative director and 343 Industries studio lead, Josh Holmes – will be joining Improbable’s other studios in London, UK, and Edmonton, Canada, and retain creative independence “while benefiting from closer technical and organisational integration with SpatialOS”.
Founded in 2012, Improbable has since grown to over 500 employees and raised over $550m in funding, with offices in the UK, United States, Canada and China.
