Embracer secures Tiburon Entertainment founders with latest buyout

Embracer Group just secured the founders of legendary sports game mavens at Tiburon Entertainment.

Embracer Group just purchased Shiver Entertainment, a 17-person indie studio located in Miami, Florida mostly known for making ports like Mortal Kombat 11 on Switch, and other work-for-hire projects. The buyout also includes two of the most influential people in the industry: John Schappert and Jason Andersen, who, in 1994, founded Tiburon. If you grew up in the 90s and loved sports games, odds are you're familiar with that name.

Shortly after leaving Visual Concepts, the team behind Madden NFL '94 and '95, Schappert and Andersen formed Tiburon. EA took a chance on the studio and gave them NFL '96 and '97, and Tiburon has handled EA's legendary sports licenses including seventeen iterations of the beloved NCAA Football series.

EA bought Tiburon in 1998 and went on to release a myriad of non-sports games including two Superman Returns games, a Sega Saturn version of Soviet Strike, and even a DS version of GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.

Schappert went on to rise in EA's ranks and eventually became Chief Operating Officer for EA, as well as Zynga, and even had a direct influence on Xbox LIVE at Microsoft (his team launched Netflix on Xbox).

Right now Shiver Entertainment has "original game projects in the pipeline for release in the near future" and will be part of Saber Interactive's division. They are also working on another "high profile" work-for-hire project.

"I can't believe I get to finally work with Schappert and Andersen - two industry legends based in my hometown of Miami. With this acquisition we have not only brought in a great development resource, but we add significantly to Saber's management capabilities. John and I are ready to greatly expand our operations in North America,"

--says Matthew Karch, CEO of Saber.