• Disney Acquires Gaming Startup To Build HTML5 Games Outside App Stores

    Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

    Mike Butcher is the European Editor for TechCrunch. A former grunge rock drummer, he became a long time journalist, and has since written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. Mike is also a co-founder and shareholder of TechHub, a co-working space/service/community with several locations... → Learn More

    Disney has acquired an HTML5 gaming engine startup called Rocket Pack, based out of Helsinki, Finalnd. A Disney spokesperson told us today, exclusively: “We can confirm that The Walt Disney Company has acquired Rocketpack, an integrated solution for plugin-free browser game development. Through a merger agreement, Rocketpack is now a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company reporting into Disney Interactive Media Group (DIMG).”

    Disney has not released the purchase price and asked us not to “speculate”. But we will. One source told us it was between $10 million and $20 million. It’s a fast acquisition – as of Feb 1, Rocket Pack was still developing the engine. We’re also going to speculate as to why Disney wanted to own this IP. It’s obvious really: You can build awesome games outside App stores – straight onto the Web, no Flash required, as it uses HTML5.

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