Tarsier Studios
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Tarsier Studios is a Swedish video game developer based in
Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal pop ...
.


History

Nine developers, including Andreas Johnsson and Björn Sunesson, founded Tarsier Studios in 2004. Johnsson had been a traditional programmer in the 1990s but wished to get into video game programming. With many Swedish universities beginning to offer game development courses, he enrolled at a
Karlshamn Karlshamn () is a locality and the seat of Karlshamn Municipality in Blekinge County, Sweden. It had 13,576 inhabitants in 2015, out of 31,846 in the municipality. Karlshamn received a Royal Charter and city privileges in 1664, when King Charles ...
university, where he got together with the other developers who would found Tarsier Studios. Their
puzzle-platform game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...
''Tio'' won a game design contest panelled by
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veterans, which landed the team a spot in an incubation programme that would provide aid to advance the game's concept. The team was given an office space but no financial assistance. Mattias Nygren joined Tarsier as its
chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especial ...
(CEO) in 2006 and the business foundation of the Sparbanken i Karlshamn acquired a significant stake in the studio. They reworked ''Tio'' into '' The City of Metronome'' and attended E3 2005 to pitch the game to publishers. The team attracted interest from companies including
Sony Computer Entertainment Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), is a multinational video game and digital entertainment company wholly owned by multinational conglomerate Sony. The SIE Group is made up of two legal co ...
but ultimately signed no publishing deal. Tarsier remained in business with work-for-hire projects while working on further prototypes. One
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-based fighting game prototype again attracted the interest of Sony, which hired the team to develop a remake of ''
Rag Doll Kung Fu ''Rag Doll Kung Fu'' is a fighting video game, created predominantly by artist Mark Healey, while working for Lionhead Studios, along with other Lionhead employees, such as David Smith and Alex Evans. ''Rag Doll Kung Fu'' is available from Val ...
''. This sparked the start of a longer partnership with Sony, with Tarsier creating art assets and later
downloadable content Downloadable content (DLC) is additional content created for an already released video game, distributed through the Internet by the game's publisher. It can either be added for no extra cost or it can be a form of video game monetization, enabli ...
packs for ''
LittleBigPlanet ''LittleBigPlanet'' (stylized as ''LittleBIGPlanet''; abbreviated ''LBP'') is a puzzle platform video game series created and produced by British developer Media Molecule and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Most games in the seri ...
''. In July 2010, Tarsier signed an exclusivity deal with Sony. During this time, the team grew to 30 people and moved from Karlshamn to
Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal pop ...
. The Karlshamn office was retained for continued outsourcing operations, while the Malmö office would house the development of console games. A "super-ambitious" game Tarsier was working on for Sony was put on hold when the studio was offered to develop ''
LittleBigPlanet PS Vita ''LittleBigPlanet PS Vita'' is a puzzle platform video game developed by Double Eleven, Tarsier Studios and XDev Studio Europe for the PlayStation Vita handheld game console. It is the fourth game of the ''LittleBigPlanet'' franchise; a serie ...
''. In June 2013, Nygren bought out the Karlshamn location, saying that it was not feasible for Tariser to operate two locations at a time. He left Tarsier and installed Ola Holmdahl as its new CEO of the 40-person Malmö studio. Out of the Karlshamn office, Nygren established The Station. Tarsier's next bigger project was the
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''Hunger''. The studio initially pitched the game to Sony, but the publisher had much higher ambitions for external projects and declined. Tarsier instead found a publisher in Bandai Namco Entertainment, which invested in the project with the intent of producing multiple games. The deal was announced in August 2016 and ''Hunger'' was renamed '' Little Nightmares''. For Sony, Tarsier created the
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game ''Statik'', and the studio worked with Nintendo on ''
The Stretchers is an 2019 action puzzle game developed by Tarsier Studios and published by Nintendo. It released for the Nintendo Switch on November 8. Gameplay ''The Stretchers'' features lighthearted, ragdoll physics-based puzzles in which players are ta ...
''. In December 2019, Tarsier Studios was acquired by Goodbye Kansas Game Invest (later known as Amplifier Game Invest)—an investment company previously bought by
Embracer Group Embracer Group AB (formerly Nordic Games Licensing AB and THQ Nordic AB) is a Swedish video game and media holding company based in Karlstad. The company was established under the name Nordic Games Licensing in 2011 as part of Nordic Games Grou ...
—for , of which in cash and in newly issued
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. Being part of a larger company meant that the studio had better financing and no longer needed to seek external publishers. The transition also brought along staff changes: Tarsier hired Oliver Merlöv, formerly of
Massive Entertainment Massive Entertainment AB is a Swedish video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Malmö. The company has been fully owned by Ubisoft since 2008. The studio is known for ''Tom Clancy's The Division'', ''The Division 2'', '' Ground Con ...
, as its
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in 2020, as well as Erik Rudelius as its chief people and culture officer. As of 2022, only three of the nine original founders remain with the company.


Games


Cancelled

* '' The City of Metronome''


References


External links

* {{Authority control 2004 establishments in Sweden 2019 mergers and acquisitions Companies based in Malmö Embracer Group Swedish companies established in 2004 Video game companies established in 2004 Video game companies of Sweden Video game development companies