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Games - Tuesday, August 11, 2009

MMO Game Publisher Turbine Working on $50M Round

Westwood, MA-based Turbine has raised $6.6M of a planned $50M VC funding round, says peHUB. Turbine is the creator of The Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online and Asheron's Call.

Turbine competes with World of Warcraft, owned by the Activision Blizzard division of Vivendi, which has a population of 12M players, each paying at least $12.99 per month. To catch up with Blizzard, Turbine plans to turn its Dungeons & Dragons Online into a free-to-play game later this year called “Eberron Unlimited.”

Return backers include Columbia Capital, Highland Capital Partners, Granite Global Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners and Tudor Ventures. Turbine had raised around $95M. With 300 people on the payroll, the firm needs the funding to keep the lights on.

Xconomy reports Turbine is on the verge of announcing its first console-based game and may also be about to acquire a new entertainment property similar to The Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons.

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