Nacon acquires Daedalic Entertainment for $60 million

Lord of the Rings Gollum — (Image credit: Daedalic Entertainment)

Videogame industry acquisitions have dominated 2022, and here's another one, albeit less earthshaking than Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard: French publisher Nacon has announced it will acquire Daedalic Entertainment. The German publisher and developer is perhaps best known for the Deponia series and the forthcoming Lord of the Rings: Gollum, but it has also published a range of decent games, such as Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun and Felix the Reaper.

The deal is worth €53 million (around $60 million) and comes after a pre-existing relationship, with Nacon already responsible for publishing The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. According to Nacon's announcement, Daedalic's current leadership team—CEO Carsten Fichtelmann and COO Stephan Harms—will "continue to run the company with a high degree of autonomy in development and publishing."

That said, under the agreement Nacon will eventually acquire "100% of the share capital and voting rights of Daedalic Entertainment," so Nacon will essentially have the final word on Daedalic's movements, for whatever that's worth. Completion of the acquisition is expected to happen later this year.

Nacon was formerly known as Bigben Interactive until February 2020, when parent company Bigben Group merged that entity with Nacon, which had been its gaming accessories label. In 2021, Nacon and The Sinking City studio Frogwares had a public falling out over claims the former had failed to meet its agreement to finance that game's development, among other issues. Nacon disputed the claims, and the version of that game currently on Steam is still published by Nacon.

Nacon has a growing list of subsidiaries, including Spiders (Greedfall, Mars: War Logs), Big Ant Studios (Cricket 22), and Cyanide (Blood Bowl 3, Tour de France 2021).

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.