Wargaming acquires Wildman developer Gas Powered Games

Wargaming.net, the studio behind massively multiplayer military games World of Tanks, World of Warplanes and World of Warships, acquired Gas Powered Games, the financially troubled studio that earlier this week canceled its Kickstarter campaign for Wildman, according to a press release from Wargaming.

"Gas Powered Games' heritage and development pedigree shows us just how valuable an addition Chris and his company will make to the Wargaming family," said Victor Kislyi, Wargaming's CEO. "Gas Powered Games has a long track record of providing incredibly engaging AAA gaming experiences and we can't wait to start working with them."

Late last year, Microsoft announced that Gas Powered Games would no longer be developing content for Age of Empires Online. Within weeks, the developer behind Supreme Commander and Dungeon Siege announced a Kickstarter project to raise funds for a hybrid action role-playing game and real-time strategy game called Wildman. Be sure to check out our interview with CEO Chris Taylor, which coincided with the announcement.

Shortly after the announcement, Gas Powered Games laid off a substantial portion of its staff, which caused Taylor to reconsider the fundraising drive. Earlier this week, well short of its Kickstarter goal, Gas Powered Games ended the fundraising effort and shifted to a strategy of finding "other ways to keep Gas Powered Games running," according to a statement on the Kickstarter blog.

The acquisition is the latest in a recent series of expansions for Wargaming. Late last month, the company announced that it had acquired FEAR 3 developer Day 1 Studios to form Wargaming West. In August 2012, the company acquired BigWorld, a middleware developer that produced much of the server code that underlies its MMOs.

Update: We reached out to Gas Powered Games CEO Chris Taylor, who told Polygon the following.

"Being welcomed into the Wargaming family is a truly exciting and defining moment for Gas Powered Games. I founded this company on the idea that we were going to develop truly AAA gaming experiences and we look forward to following this path with our newfound colleagues, who share that same commitment. To everyone in the game industry and to everyone who has been a fan of Gas Powered Games through the years, I truly thank each and every one of you for your support. I can't quite talk about what we'll be working on as our first project, but rest assured, once we have more to share, you will all hear about it."

We also reached out to Wargaming, but representatives from the company declined to talk specifics.