Valve has bought a small studio founded by members of PopCap Games and Blizzard, the developers responsible for games like Plants vs. Zombies and Diablo 3, respectively.
Star Filled Studios will open an office in the San Francisco Bay Area, but the new parent company hasn't announced what its plans for the developer are. Star Filled makes games for iPhone, Steam, and other platforms, according to its website.
The team consists of programmers Jeff Gates and Tod Semple. Gates made the cell stage of the god game Spore for Maxis, helped develop the action-role-playing game Diablo 3, and worked at PopCap on the tower-defense title Plants vs. Zombies. He even assisted in the creation of PayPal.com.
Semple also worked on Diablo 3's game engine before moving to LucasArts, where he made the engine for the action game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. He more recently served on the development team for Plants vs. Zombies, like Gates.
This isn't the first time Valve has purchased a studio. It acquired Turtle Rock Studios, the company behind Left 4 Dead, in 2008.
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