If you don’t know who Dhruva Interactive is, don’t worry, because I honestly don’t, either. They primarily work in the background, working with some of the most iconic names in the game industry. They even worked with Intel.
They, directly don’t operate as a development company. They do game development, but they contribute as part of a project for others. From an industry perspective, their business is practically a Business to Business company. They’ve worked with, alongside, and inside large Triple A game studios. Clients include Sony’s Games Division, Microsoft’s Games Division, ZeniMax (Bethesda), Capcom, Disney’s Games Division, Electronic Arts (EA), Rare, UbiSoft, and more.
They were acquired in 2016 by a company called Starbreeze Studios, best known for developing The Darkness, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, Syndicate, and supported development to Payday 2.
Starbreeze has been in financial troubles, and has agreed with Rockstar Games to sell Dhruva Interactive to them. Previously, Starbreeze had 90.5% in shares of Dhruva Interactive, Rockstar purchased all those shares for a total value in the neighborhood of 8 Million (7.9 to be precise). The agreement was a mult-faceted offer of 7 Million in cash, $1.5 Million, and an earn-out agreement of $800,000. The entire agreement is to be completed soon in the coming weeks. Rockstar now has a 91.82% controlling stake in Dhruva Interactive, Rockstar says that they want to fold Dhruva Interactive into Rockstar India when the deal is completed. At the moment, Dhruva will work alongside Rockstar India.
Any impending projects Dhruva has in the pipeline will continue unchanged and uninterrupted. At present time, Dhruva Interactive is, and/or was the oldest Indian game development studio, had 300 talented developers. Rockstar India has 500 talented developers, and once the deal is completed, that number will become 800. According to rockstar… “The addition of the Dhruva team to the existing talent at Rockstar India will expand the studio’s capabilities and reinforces our belief in and commitment to the local development community.”