But why Shiver Entertainment? What is it that piqued Nintendo’s interest in this Florida-based company that made it choose first-party games among all the talented teams in the industry? Let’s take a look.
Shiver Entertainment – A Short History
Founded in late 2012, Shiver describes itself as a “boutique game developer based in warm and sunny Miami, Florida. Our small team is made up of highly talented individuals who enjoy working together to create great games.”
From Shiver’s website:
Our goal is to create the best games in the world and have fun doing it. Part of the appeal of our boutique studio is that you get to work on many different aspects of the game, combining your interests with the needs of the project. You won’t be a cog here hoping to work on the fun areas of the game – you’ll be doing that from day one while working with some of the most talented people in the industry.
Founded by John Schappert, Jason Andersen (two co-founders of Tiburon Entertainment) and Jon Osvald (who was Senior Vice President of Games at Zynga and oversaw it). Ville With Nexon’s investment, Shiver initially focused on mobile and free-to-play games, which have since shifted to development on consoles (PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch) and PCs, both for contract work on high-profile titles of original titles IP.”
Mobile RTS Beasts vs Bots was announced in 2015, although we struggled to find evidence of it beyond a handful of videos and a few dead store links. For all we know, it may never have actually launched. In any case, it seems like Shiver has turned away from mobile development and towards console development, bringing its technical expertise to port work in collaboration with other studios, particularly Warner Bros.
In 2021, Embracer Group acquired the studio under Saber Interactive until Saber itself was removed from the portfolio in March 2024. After that, Shiver remained in Embracer’s portfolio until Nintendo acquired it.
Shiver Entertainment – Gameography
So what games did Shiver work on that definitely made it to market? Here’s a summary of all the games Shiver supports and the Switch port credits:
Okay, there are some big names there, but it’s hardly the sparkling resume that you’d think would get Nintendo’s attention, even with the port expertise on display. Mortal Kombat 11 was fine, and by all accounts Hogwarts runs admirably on the Switch, but Mortal Kombat 1? This is pretty bad on Nintendo’s system.
Maybe Warner Bros. gave Shiver an impossible task to bring the game to the Switch and have it run in any state at all is a small miracle. Regardless, Nintendo needs to see something beyond the end credits. Only after many years of close and exclusive partnership did Canada’s Next Level Games (Luigi’s Mansion 3, Mario Strikers: Battle League) become a first-party studio in 2021. SRD was almost a Nintendo partner 40 years before finally becoming a first-party subsidiary in 2022 because the arrangement had worked well. Why is it worth purchasing Shiver out of the blue?
So why is Nintendo interested in Shiver?
Shiver Entertainment CEO John Schappert is an industry veteran who has worked for some of the largest companies in the industry. After working at Visual Concepts in the early 1990s, the software programmer co-founded Tiburon Entertainment in 1994 (“tiburón” is Spanish for shark and “shiver” is the collective noun for the toothy fish – when the fins are in the… (The water of the logo didn’t make you aware of the connection) and worked closely with EA on games like that Driving me crazy Series.
EA acquired Tiburon in 1998 and in 2002, Scappert moved to EA, eventually becoming executive vice president for a short time before taking over as head of Xbox Live at Microsoft Game Studios. He returned to EA as COO for almost two years before serving in the same role at Zynga. He has held several board positions since 2012 and has been CEO of Shiver since 2013.
Why is this all relevant? Schappert is a serious individual with industry knowledge and knowledge of game development from both the trenches and the boardroom. Far from being some hip indie startup, Shiver will be run by someone who will prove reassuringly professional and experienced to Nintendo’s higher-ups.
Schappert also has more personal associations and connections with Nintendo. When DICE posthumously awarded Satoru Iwata a Lifetime Achievement Award, Schappert presented the award (to Reggie Fils-Aimé) and spoke of the former Nintendo president’s generosity. “Mr. Iwata has left an indelible mark on the industry. He made gaming bigger and better,” he said.
“My friendship, admiration and respect for Mr. Iwata is so great. He wasn’t a normal video game manager. He was a game developer, designer… His passion and dedication will be deeply missed. So please make every game count.”
When you add in his company’s technical expertise with modest, if not “withered” technology, and his valuable contacts and connections with other studios across the industry, the acquisition begins to make more sense.
And let’s not forget that this “will have little impact on Nintendo’s results for this fiscal year.” A small studio in Florida is a relatively inexpensive purchase, especially compared to the enormous amounts other companies pay for massive studios and their intellectual property. The announcement lists the Shiver’s “share capital” as “$10” (which would be a very good deal indeed), although the actual price will be the undisclosed debt that Nintendo is taking on with the sale.
Nintendo has very full, very deep pockets, but they don’t stay full by spending willy-nilly. You can be sure that Nintendo has made a good deal here.
Switch is the future
There’s also the possibility here that Shiver could be used as a support team for third parties who need help bringing their game to the Nintendo platform. As you can see from the credits, the studio is no stranger to joining existing pipelines alongside other companies, and having a first-party team on hand to help with the technical intricacies could help ensure the next Switch gets the third-party support it needs. It’s easy to say that Nintendo games sell Nintendo platforms – and that’s true – but the current console’s wide appeal has also reached core gamers who want to take the biggest titles on the go. With other portable devices like the Steam Deck now available, it makes sense to have a team dedicated to providing ongoing support for exciting non-Nintendo titles.
In its announcement, Nintendo broadly outlined its intentions for the future:
Shiver’s focus remains the same and will continue to commission software porting and development for multiple platforms, including Nintendo Switch.
So the acquisition of Shiver Entertainment may have been a surprise, but given the developer’s acumen and the kind of expertise Nintendo considers valuable enough to bring in-house, it seems like a smart purchase. According to Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa, all signs point to “Switch 2” being an interactive update to the current system’s hybrid concept and following a similar path, with third-party games still more than welcome on the updated platform. It’s also not impossible that Shiver’s support team specialization will be used in first-party games, as the team certainly has talent that could be used for internal projects.
Whatever the exact game plan, with Shiver as part of Nintendo it should be much easier to find optimization solutions, address mobile chipset bottlenecks, and port games over to the next platform.