Let me provide some context for this post: At the top of 2024, Enad Global 7, which owns Daybreak and whose top execs came from Daybreak after a soft takeover a few years back, told executives that it was selling off a “noncore IP” for $5.9M – an IP that turned out to be the PlanetSide IP. According to the copyright filings, the new owner was something called Bay Tree Tower Limited. Then, just a few months later, EG7 moved development of PlanetSide 2 from Daybreak to a sister subsidiary called Toadman Interactive (which has seen serious layoffs this year). But beyond those two moves, we really haven’t gotten much info out of either EG7 or Daybreak on what’s going on behind the scenes.
Well, now we’re getting some clarity from the new owner, finally. As first spotted on Reddit, the new owner is Astrapto Capital, a venture capital firm whose owners describe it as a “private equity and multi-family office platform” based in Hong Kong. Now, the company has dropped a Linkedin post explaining that it bought the whole PlanetSide IP to… diversify its portfolio.
“Astrapto Capital is the current owner of the full Intellectual Property (IP) rights to the PlanetSide game franchise, including PlanetSide, PlanetSide 2 and PlanetSide Arena. This iconic franchise enhances our diverse portfolio across sports, media, and entertainment, which includes investments in Westbrook Inc.—the media company founded by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith—and Hyperice, a leader in advanced recovery and mobility technology.”
Hey, fun PlanetSide Arena namedrop in there. RIP.
Anyhow, it doesn’t seem like there’s any specific plan for what to do with the IP, as Astrapto says it will “look forward to exploring new opportunities for the brand’s future” and urges “interested parties who wish to collaborate on the IP or explore licensing opportunities” to contact the company. But it also devotes two whole paragraphs to talking up the franchise and PS2, so it doesn’t sound like anybody’s angling to kill anything off, either, just dangling the IP out there for somebody to license for another game. Which, we point out again, Daybreak tried and failed at already, hence why it let the whole thing go for $5.9M in the first place.
