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In a post on his blog, GarageGames CEO Josh Williams has reassured customers that their purchase by media company IAC won’t affect their support of indie developers.
“Since Jeff, Rick, Tim and Mark started the company 8 years ago, the fundamental mission for GarageGames was pretty simple – make the industry a better place for developers,” he explains.
“But making it easier to create games is half the battle, at best – we also need to help developers get their games to market successfully and find their audiences.”
This desire matched well with IAC’s interest in creating an online game portal, and the two companies felt a strong synergy.
“IAC is a very smart, savvy group of people and they recognized right away how passionate and committed we were to making great games, to treating developers fairly, and to our philosophies here. As such, our deal is structured to accommodate all that, and to make sure we stay true to our goals.”
GarageGames had often received offers of funding, Williams says, but didn’t want to feel any pressure to ‘flip’ the company.
“We didn’t want to sell the company to the highest bidder, or go public really quickly, which is what most VC is built to do, but obviously not what we’re all about here. With IAC, though, we finally found a perfect partner.”
Given that GarageGames is a company that prides itself on providing technology at prices significantly below its true value – sometimes even for free – many were worried that a new owner would push the operation to become more profitable and less philanthropic.
Speaking about this concern, Williams reassures: “We’re pushing Torque forward in a huge way, re-vamping and overhauling the engine and tools in ways we couldn’t have before.
"Suffice it to say, we’re getting more done on Torque than we ever have. We can’t wait to share the updates with everyone, and we have a bunch of cool stuff for the community up our sleeve.”
