Huh. In the years before their hugely successful Elite reboot Kickstarter campaign, Braben-built UK studio Frontier Developments always appeared to be limping along making games they didn’t especially want to, or not finishing the games they did. Now, however, they’re considered successful enough to be listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), the little sister of the London Stock Exchange.
A round of fundraising in June added £2.8m to the company’s coffers, in addition to the not inconsiderable £7.2m in cash reserves they held as of May 31.
“We are very excited to be listing our Company at a time of such strong momentum in the business and the sector,” said an excited David ‘I’m excited, me’ Braben.
“This placing of Frontier shares, combined with our recent oversubscribed funding round, is a strong endorsement both of the opportunities we have identified, and our team’s ability to deliver on the next round of enhancements to our business to make the most of those opportunities.”
Braben is hoping to license Frontier’s in-house tech to third party developers. Which is nice, but isn’t this a little bit odd? Frontier will now be subject to the whims of shareholders, as well as the promises they made to more than 25,000 backers last year. What happens if the two groups’ aims, if you’ll excuse the pun, don’t align?
Thanks, GamesIndustry.