Autodesk Announces Intent to Acquire Scaleform Corporation

Autodesk, Inc. ADSK announced today it intends to acquire Scaleform Corporation, a privately held user interface (UI) tools and middleware company, for approximately $36 million in cash. Scaleform's leading technology has been licensed in the development of at least 800 games across major hardware platforms: PCs, Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony Playstation Portable (PSP), and Nintendo Wii. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and expected to close in Autodesk's first quarter of fiscal 2012 (which ends on April 30, 2011). Scaleform's flagship product, Scaleform GFx, allows development teams to more quickly and easily author game UIs and interactive 3D experiences using popular design tools: Adobe Flash and Adobe Creative Suite software. Scaleform GFx helps developers take advantage of the 3D hardware acceleration capabilities of modern systems to create cinematic quality menus, in-game heads up displays (HUDs), animated textures, mini-games, and even mobile games and applications. “The Scaleform acquisition will further Autodesk's ability to provide customers with more complete workflows to more rapidly develop immersive 3D and casual game experiences,” said Marc Stevens, Vice President, Games, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. “The Scaleform team will bring a wealth of expertise in creating highly optimized runtime solutions for PCs, consoles and mobile devices. We expect the integration of Scaleform to allow us to innovate faster and help further improve the game creation process for online, console, and mobile development.”