British retailer GAME Digital announced the sale of its Multiplay brand to Unity for £19M ($25.4M), according to Angelos Anastasopoulos of THE ESPORTS OBSERVER. The deal "only regards Multiplay's digital business," as the events and esports functions will now be incorporated into GAME Digital itself. The company "wants to focus more on those two aspects of its business," as part of a new "strategic review" published on Nov. 15. Multiplay's digital function "focuses on rentable servers for games" such as CS:GO, Minecraft, Ark and Rust. The acquisition "hints at multiplayer servers provided by Unity in the future," although it is "not yet known whether Multiplay will continue to operate under its own name" or if it is going to be assimilated into Unity. GAME Digital acquired Multiplay as a whole in March '15 for £20M. The new deal will include an initial payment of £17.1M ($22.9M), with £1.9M ($2.5M) held in escrow for 19 months. Craig Fletcher, who founded Multiplayer in '97, "will stay with GAME" (THE ESPORTS OBSERVER, 11/28).
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