Codemasters and Nottingham-based online multiplayer specialist Monumental Games have between them bought UK games developer Swordfish Studios from Activision (NSDQ: ATVI), now that the Guitar Hero maker has merged with Vivendi (EPA: VIV) Games. Monumental gets Swordfish’s 26 Manchester-based staff, (that’s more people to help with its upcoming multiplayer game Football Superstars) while Codemasters gets Swordfish’s main Birmingham office to create original games under the Codemasters brand name. Monumental says Swordfish is “one of the very few developers worldwide to have fully solved the hugely complex issues involved in running and managing the XLSP (Xbox Live Server Platform) server environments for online console gaming”.

In April, Vivendi merged its games division - responsible for the staggeringly popular World of Warcraft - with Activision, creating Activision Blizzard. Now that Activision is benefitting from Vivendi’s added development talent, it’s perhaps unsurprising that a relatively small developer was deemed surplus to requirements. Release.

• Vivendi Games/Activision Merger Nodded Through By EC