A merger between two Australian mobile developers – Firemint and IronMonkey – was announced by Electronic Arts yesterday. Now it turns out that an interesting side story regarding Infinite Interactive, makers of the Puzzle Quest franchise, was overlooked.
Firemint acquired Infinite Interactive last year, but the latter’s founder and creative lead Steve Fawkner revealed that his studio actually broke off from that deal and became independent back in January.
“There was never an actual acquisition of Infinite, it was more of a merger,” he explained. “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.”
Fawkner also talked about how Infinite Interactive retained the rights to Puzzle Quest, and the chances of another entry in the franchise are very good.
“While I don’t have a specific announcement that I can make at the moment, if you shook a Magic 8-Ball and asked it ‘Will Infinite’s next game be a Puzzle Quest title?’, then it would quite probably say ‘All signs point to yes!’,” he said.
[Joystiq]