GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

Lego acquires Lego Universe MMOG

Gazillion sells its rights to massively multiplayer game with "majority" of game's developers offered jobs to continue work on title; layoffs reported.

18 Comments

Gazillion's Lego Universe massively multiplayer online game was in development for four years before launching last October, but the game was online for only four months before the developer divested itself of the project. Today, Gazillion announced that it has sold its rights to Lego Universe to The Lego Group, the Denmark company that publishes the game and manufactures the building block toys on which it is based. No purchase price was announced.

Now it's up to The Lego Group to put the MMOG's pieces together.
Now it's up to The Lego Group to put the MMOG's pieces together.

As part of the deal, the Lego Group has offered employment to "the majority of the Lego Universe development team," which was formerly part of Gazillion's NetDevil subsidiary. They will continue to work on the game from their existing Colorado offices, while Gazillion's other NetDevil projects will be moved elsewhere. According to an unconfirmed account, the move resulted in more than 20 layoffs from NetDevil.

"We're proud of the game our team built and are certain that it has a bright future," Gazillion president and COO David Brevik said in a statement. "The transition of members of our team to the Lego Group enables us to focus completely on internally published, free-to-play game businesses."

Lego Universe has been expanding since launch with additional items and environments. Earlier this month, the game incorporated the Ninjago toy line into its world, as well as new multiplayer features allowing four gamers to adventure together.

For more on Lego Universe, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.

[CORRECTION]: This article originally referred to Lego Universe as a "free-to-play" game. GameSpot regrets the error.

Please use a html5 video capable browser to watch videos.
This video has an invalid file format.
00:00:00
Sorry, but you can't access this content!
Please enter your date of birth to view this video

By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

Join the conversation
There are 18 comments about this story