Given the current landscape of the games industry, it feels like nearly every developer and publisher is a potential candidate for being acquired by a larger company, but though there’s certainly no shortage of studios that are looking for such investments, not everyone falls in that group. Horror developer Bloober Team has said in the past that it intends to resist acquisition talks and remain independent, and speaking recently with IGN, CEO Piotr Babieno stressed that again.
Upon being asked about whether being acquired is a potential plan for the Polish studio, Babieno said that Bloober Team wants to maintain its creative independence, which is something that any parent company would likely encroach on. As such, staying independent remains a goal for Bloober Team.
“If we will have someone who [acquires us], then perhaps one day they will make the decision, ‘Maybe we could put them on a [different] project,’ and I don’t want to,” he said. “Those people who came to us from… other big studios in Poland and foreign countries, I think that they came because they would like to be part of the creative process. So my goal is to stay independent. We had a renewal of strategic options and we decided that as a company we would like to follow the path of independence.”
In October 2021, Chinese tech giant Tencent acquired a 22% stake in Bloober Team for roughly $19.5 million through its subsidiary Serene Century Limited, becoming its biggest shareholder, though the studio still remains independent.
Bloober Team is currently working on the Silent Hill 2 remake with Konami and on Layers of Fear, while the studio also has unannounced projects in the works with Private Division, Rogue Games, and Draw Distance.