Rebellion joins social games race

UK studio Rebellion has become the latest studio to tackle the lucrative social games business, by setting up an internal division to build product for various platforms such as Facebook.

The move comes after the Oxford-based developer launched the beta of its free-to-play Facebook game, Evil Genius.

Rebellion will still be working on more traditional, boxed triple-A product, the studio said. Yet to witness one of the UK’s eldest of old guards moving to Facebook signifies, if only briefly, how rapidly the games industry is moving.

“The release of Evil Genius has given us an appetite to look at other opportunities in the area,” said co-founder Jason Kingsley.

“One thing that has become increasingly apparent over the last few years is that gamers can’t be defined as just people who own consoles – people who use social media like Facebook or use smart phones all play games and this is an exciting new opportunity that we want to explore."