Seven months after it hired Jason Hall to head its new games division, Warner Bros. has bought his alma mater, Monolith Productions. The deal caps over two years of collaboration between the two companies on the massively multiplayer online game the Matrix Online, which is due to hit PCs in October.
Though the financial terms of their deal were not disclosed, Warner Bros. and Monolith did say the studio would become part of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, the games arm of global media titan Time Warner. Currently, there are no plans to relocate the developer's Kirkland, Washington, headquarters.
Ironically, many of Monolith's games were published by companies with ties to movie studios other than Warner Bros. Tron 2.0 was published by Buena Vista Interactive, the game arm of the parent company of Walt Disney, Touchstone Pictures, and Miramax Films. The upcoming shooter, F.E.A.R., is being published by Vivendi Universal Games, and 2001's Aliens Versus Predator 2 was published by the all-but-defunct Fox Interactive.