Fishlabs GmbH (formerly Fishlabs Entertainment GmbH and Deep Silver Fishlabs) is a German

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

based in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

. Founded in 2004 by Michael Schade and Christian Lohr, the studio is best known for its ''Galaxy on Fire'' series. Following a brief bankruptcy proceeding, Fishlabs was acquired by

Koch Media Plaion (formerly Koch Media) is a German-Austrian media company headquartered in Höfen, Tyrol, Austria, with an operating subsidiary based in Planegg, Germany. The company was founded in 1994 by Franz Koch and Klemens Kundratitz. The company ...

and reorganised as part of their game publishing label

Deep Silver Deep Silver is an Austrian video game publisher and a division of Plaion. Eugenio Vitale serves as the director of games development for Deep Silver. History Deep Silver was announced in November 2002, with their first release to be '' Anarc ...

History

Fishlabs was founded in 2004 by Michael Schade and Christian Lohr, incorporated under the name Fishlabs Entertainment GmbH. That same year, the company received a round of financing, which allowed them to pay for development expenses for several years while generating revenue from their releases. The company had also planned a

series B round A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the ...

in May 2010, as they announced that would be moving into the

massively multiplayer online game A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent world, persistent open world, alt ...

s market. By mid-2013, Fishlabs had run out of money; in October, 25 jobs were cut before the company went into

self-administration Self-administration is, in its medical sense, the process of a subject administering a pharmacological substance to themself. A clinical example of this is the subcutaneous "self-injection" of insulin by a diabetic patient. In animal experimentati ...

. On 2 December, media company

announced that they had acquired Fishlabs, which would henceforth operate as the dedicated mobile studio for their game publishing label,

. As the agreement was an asset deal, all of Fishlab's assets, including 52 employees, were transferred to Koch Media and incorporated in a new

division Division or divider may refer to: Mathematics *Division (mathematics), the inverse of multiplication *Division algorithm, a method for computing the result of mathematical division Military *Division (military), a formation typically consisting ...

of that company, called Deep Silver Fishlabs. The company's former legal entity, Fishlabs Entertainment GmbH, was to be dissolved, and both founders left the company. Schade and Lohr founded Rockfish Games in 2014 and developed

Everspace ''Everspace'' is a 3D space shooter with roguelike elements developed and published by German studio Rockfish Games. It was released in 2017. A sequel, ''Everspace 2'' is set to be released on April 6, 2023. Gameplay ''Everspace'' is a space ...

. As result of the change in ownership, and the associated financial stability, Fishlabs also moved into

video game publishing A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that have been developed either internally by the publisher or externally by a video game developer. They often finance the development, sometimes by paying a video game developer ...

. Fishlabs employed 67 people in August 2019, and 80 in January 2020.

List of video games

Notes

References

External links

* {{Embracer Group German companies established in 2004 Companies based in Hamburg Deep Silver Video game companies established in 2004 Video game companies of Germany Video game publishers Video game development companies 2013 mergers and acquisitions