Stronghold goes massively multiplayer and online as Firefly announces Stronghold Kingdoms

I don’t normally cover product launches at Gamesbrief (this is a blog about the business of games after all), but this announcement of the launch of Stronghold Kingdoms from Firefly Studios is different for several reasons:

• Firefly is not only “taking Stronghold online and massively multiplayer, but we are funding this ourselves as an independent developer”, according to CEO Eric Ouellette
• It’s a case study in a developer taking its own intellectual property (the Stronghold series has sold over 5 million units) and developing a new and exciting business from it.
• The original Stronghold remains one of my favourite games
• Firefly is a Gamesbrief client and I have been working on Kingdoms for a year now: it’s great to be able to talk about it finally.

The game is not due until 2010, but it’s going to be exciting.