Heatwave buys rights to shelved 'Gods and Heroes'

Austin gaming studio Heatwave Interactive has bought the rights to a much-anticipated online game, and company officials say the purchase will bring more jobs to town.

The move also could elevate Heatwave's profile from a local startup to a potential industry-wide player.

The PC game, "Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising," is a massively multiplayer online game in the same genre as "World of Warcraft."

It had been in development for years but was shelved after publisher Perpetual Entertainment shut down in 2007.

Heatwave recently purchased the rights to "Gods and Heroes" and all of the related assets from online gaming publisher PlayGrid, a San Francisco-based company made up of some former employees of Perpetual Entertainment.

Without getting into specifics of the deal, Heatwave CEO Anthony Castoro said his company paid "pennies on the dollar."

But Heatwave didn't just buy the rights to a new game; the company now owns the development engine on which the game operates. Heatwave also bought the source code to Perpetual's online gaming platform, which can now be used to run future offerings from the Austin company.

The company will restart development on the game and will be hiring a team in Austin, which will "easily" lead to 20 to 30 hirings, Castoro said. The company has 25 employees now. It recently hired a lead designer for the new project, and more jobs are expected to be filled in the coming weeks.

Before the plug was pulled, "Gods and Heroes" had been getting significant buzz in the gaming universe. At the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo, the game won a number of awards from industry Web sites.

PlayGrid was in discussions with a number of developers interested in "Gods and Heroes," said Chris McKibbin, co-founder of PlayGrid and former president of Perpetual Entertainment.

"We have known and worked with a number of the Heatwave team and believe that they are the best developer and studio to realize the full potential of the 'Gods and Heroes' franchise," McKibbin said.

One benefit to buying a game relatively late in development, Castoro said, is that another company has already put "85 percent of the work in," leaving Heatwave to work on the finishing touches.

"We think it could be really big," he said.

Castoro wouldn't outline a specific timeline, but he said his team will spend "less than two years, but more than a few months" on development.

While "Gods and Heroes" was originally envisioned as a monthly fee-based game, Castoro said the company will decide whether that's ultimately the right direction.

"I think what we want to do is make a game that lots of people want to play," he said. "And we're going to make it as easy and as fun to get into as possible."

bgaar@statesman.com; 912-5932