T he popular, and venerable Mac game developer MacSoft has been sold by its parent company, Infogrames, to Destineer, Inc. Destineer will gain all rights to the MacSoft name, future and past MacSoft titles, and the rights to publish Macintosh versions of future Infogrames software titles.
The marks the umpteemth time that MacSoft has traded hands, as the publisher has been a part of many other companies changing hands during the consolidation of the 1990s.
Peter Tamte is the president of Destineer, and many will remember him as either the Executive Vice President of Publishing for former Mac gaming powerhouse Bungie Software, the founder of MacSoft, or a former Apple executive. All three would be correct. Sometime after Bungie was sold to Microsoft, Peter Tamte formed Destineer as a new Mac gaming publishing company. Since that time, Destineer has leveraged Mr. Tamteis Microsoft connections to bring many of Microsoftis gaming titles to the Mac market.
In many ways, the tale of MacSoft is coming back to where it started.
From Infogrames:
Infogrames, Inc. announced today that it has sold its Macintosh publishing operations, MacSoft(R), to Destineer, Inc. Under the terms of the deal, Destineer(TM) has acquired from Infogrames all rights to the MacSoft brand and all MacSoft-branded existing products and products under development, as well as first rights to publish Macintosh versions of future Infogramesi products. The majority of Infogramesi MacSoft employees will join Destineer immediately. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
"We are focusing our attention on our biggest growth areas: PC and video games," said Paul Rinde, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Infogramesi Minneapolis studio, which included the MacSoft label. "Destineeris excellent track record in publishing Macintosh games makes it an ideal company to publish current and future Infogramesi titles for Macintosh systems."
You can get more information on Destineer at the companyis limited Web site.