K2 Networks buys APB
MMO cost only ?1.5 million.
After months of speculation, down-and-out MMO APB finally has a new owner.
K2 Networks is it. GamesIndustry.biz reports that a sum of around £1.5 million sealed the deal.
Who? The outfit that takes Asian online games like War Rock and 9 Dragons and localises them for the West.
K2 also operates global free-to-play platform GamersFirst, which makes a micro-transaction model seem likely for APB in the future.
An official statement is coming next week.
APB is a modern-day cops and robbers MMO. It was to be Crackdown creator Realtime Worlds' - and GTA creator Dave Jones' - masterpiece.
But two-and-a-half months after a July launch, Realtime Worlds had collapsed and the plug had been pulled on the APB game servers.
The reasons why have been mulled over repeatedly. The last we heard, a wealth of funding gave way to complacency and also presented Realtime Worlds with an intimidatingly large debt to repay.
Codemasters Online recently told Eurogamer that it would take nine months of hard work to turn APB around. K2 hasn't given any indication of a timeframe for APB's re-release.
Track back to Eurogamer's review of APB to find out what went wrong.