An iron partnership forged in the fires of the Electronic Arts furnace, Melbourne can now claim to be home to a mobile development studio second to none.
Firemonkeys is the new studio born from merger of IronMonkey and Firemint, both EA owned mobile game development houses located in Melbourne Australia.
Firement in particular has ridden the successful rise of mobile gaming, best known for its titles Real Racing and Flight Control. Later the company absorbed fellow Melbourne based development studio Infinite Interactive (PuzzleQuest) in January 2011and then in May last year became part of the Electronic Arts behemoth.
Meanwhile IronMonkey has been doing great work for EA realising many iconic EA franchises into mobile form. Games such as Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, and Mass Effect: Infiltrator as well as The Sims: Freeplay have all emerged from the St Kilda Rd studio in recent years.
In what was somewhat of an inevitable announcement, Electronic Arts has announced the merger of the two studios to form Firemonkeys. Here are the details:
These two studios have entertained over 50 million players in 2012 alone with stellar titles including Flight Control, SPY mouse and Real Racing from Firemint, and Mass Effect Infiltrator, Dead Space and The Sims FreePlay from IronMonkey. Based in Melbourne, Australia, both studios have been developing mobile games for over a decade and combining the two teams makes Firemonkeys Australia’s largest game development studio.
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Having failed to grow up Bantick continues to pursue his childish passions for creative writing, interactive entertainment and showing-off through adulthood. In 1994 Bantick began doing radio at Melbourne’s 102.7 3RRRFM, in 1997 transferring to become a core member of the technology show Byte Into It. In 2003 he wrote briefly for the The Age newspaper’s Green Guide, providing video game reviews. In 2004 Bantick wrote the news section of PC GameZone magazine. Since 2006 Bantick has provided gaming and tech lifestyle stories for iTWire.com, including interviews and opinion in the RadioactivIT section.
