Amazon Just Bought a Video-Game Company The Seattle-based tech giant has scooped up Irvine, Calif.-based Double Helix Games.
By Catherine Clifford •
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Amazon increasingly wants to be your everything: where you buy toilet paper, watch movies and -- it hopes -- where you will go for online games.
The Seattle-based tech juggernaut has acquired Double Helix Games, the maker of video games like Killer Instinct, according to an emailed statement from Amazon.
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Irvine, Calif.-based Double Helix Games has been around for close to two decades and is the result of the merger of two legendary gaming shops: Shiny Entertainment, which made games like Earthworm Jim, Sacrifice, MDK and Enter the Matrix; and The Collective, which made games like Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
"Amazon has acquired Double Helix as part of our ongoing commitment to build innovative games for customers," said Rena Lunak, an Amazon spokesperson, in an emailed statement. Lunak would not respond to questions as to how much the deal was worth or where a conjoined staff would be headquartered.
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Neither would Lunak respond to an inquiry as to why Amazon would make this purchase. That said, Amazon has been rumored to be gearing up to release its own gaming console.
The online retail giant does have a gaming arm and hires gaming staff in Seattle, San Francisco and Irvine. Late last year, Amazon Game Studios released a game called "Air Patriots," a defense game that is optimized for mobile devices.
