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H1Z1 devs claim “no affiliation” with Russian investors accused of election interference

H1Z1 Hummvee

Developer Daybreak Games, makers of H1Z1 and EverQuest 2, may be in trouble. The US government have begun freezing the assets of Russian oligarchs accused of “destabilising activities”, including interference with the 2016 US election. One of those companies, Columbus Nova, was reportedly Daybreak’s parent company.

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In a statement to MassivelyOP, Daybreak Games say that they are not, in fact, owned by Columbus Nova:

“Daybreak Game Company has no affiliation with Columbus Nova. Jason Epstein, former member of Columbus Nova, is and has always been the primary owner and executive chairman of Daybreak Game Company (formerly Sony Online Entertainment) which he acquired from Sony in February 2015.”

Daybreak’s denial is strange, as the sale of the company by Sony Online Entertainment to Columbus Nova in 2015 was widely reported. In a second statement to MassivelyOP, Daybreak said “That distinction was never corrected in the past, so we are correcting that now”.

It appears that the 2015 press release, announcing the purchase of Daybreak by Columbus Nova, has been deleted from Daybreak’s servers. Separately, a Wikipedia user called DaybreakPR was banned for attempting to edit Daybreak’s Wikipedia entry and state that it is Epstein rather than Columbus Nova who owns Daybreak Games.

Following MassivelyOP’s reporting, Twitter user ThaiTanicDK reached out to the publication to point out that Columbus Nova also appears in Daybreak Games’ privacy policy:

We will be updating this story as we learn more.