Disney Interactive Acquires Gamestar

Disney Interactive Studios has announced its forthcoming acquisition of Chinese developer Gamestar.

Gamestar will become Disney Interactive's sixth internal studio, according to a GamesIndustry report, following Avalanche Software, Black Rock Studio, Fall Line Studio, Propaganda Games and most recently, Junction Point Studios, founded by Warren Spector.

"Gamestar will play an important role in our global growth plans, providing a high quality talent pool for our expanding product portfolio," said Disney Interactive Executive Vice President Graham Hopper. "Our global expansion is aimed at achieving a new level of creative capacity, quality and expertise in videogame software development."

Founded in 2002, Gamestar maintains studios in Shanghai and Wuhan, and describes itself as "one of the most experienced game development studios in China - particularly for real-time 3-D PC and console game development," as well as being able to provide "the highest quality services in a fraction of the cost compared to U.S., Japan and Korea" because of drastically lower Chinese labor costs. Gamestar's previous projects include Midway Arcade Treasures 3 for the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox, and Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy for the PC.