Emergent forced to sell Gamebryo and other assets

Middleware studio Emergent has seen its Gamebryo Lightspeed engine and other assets put up for sale by one of its key investors.

Venture Lending and Leasing V, inc, funneled $4 million into Emergent, but now has liquidation group Gerbsman Partners orchestrating a sale of assets on its behalf.

Gamebryo has seen a number of high profile licensees, including the recent Fallout: New Vegas. The various derivations of the cross-platform engine have been used in around 350 games to date, with the sale of assets notice claiming 100 more are forthcoming.

The company was due to merge with troubled Australian studio Krome, but called the deal off earlier this week, hinting it was due to Krome's recent near-closure.

However, Gerbsman Partners' sale of assets document reveals that, despite being $0.4 million in profit for 2010 to date, Emergent had suffered multi-million losses over the prior four years - including a record low of $10 million (before taxes) in 2008.

However, revenues had grown from $3.4 million in the 2005 (Emergent's first year of operation) to $12.2 million last year.

The sale is for "the acquisition of all or substantially all of Emergent Game Technology's assets, including its Intellectual Property in whole or in part."

In September, Emergent had announced a new browser-based version of Gamebryo Lightspeed.