Human Equation Acquires Licenses Rights From Funcom's Black Watchmen's IP, Part of The Secret World Universe

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA--(Marketwired - March 19, 2014) - Montreal-based Human Equation announces its successful negotiation with Funcom for an exclusive license for The Black Watchmen's intellectual property.

The deal for the IP includes an exclusive license on The Black Watchmen to produce Alternate Reality Games and all tie-in products for PC, mobile, Web series, movies and comic books.

The Black Watchmen was a main faction created as a marketing campaign component called an Alternate Reality Game (ARG). The widespread success of the campaign and its sequel, The End of Days, engaged more than 600,000 players from 22 countries through web-hunting, puzzle-solving, and real-life questing spread across seven cities.

"The Black Watchmen is part of the overall mythos of The Secret World, primarily because the ARG made it so. Human Equation has clearly put a lot of thought and efforts into this already. Funcom is very much looking forward to supporting them through the success of this venture." says Morten Larssen, Executive Vice-President at Funcom.

Although this new IP is completely independent from The Secret World storyline, Human Equation plans to offer special rewards to TSW players who join the Black Watchmen universe. They also plan to recognize previous lifetime subscription members and past ARG players with tailored packages.

"Our ARGs have always been about making people's lives fun. For some of them, it meant being called at 4 a.m. by a five-year-old girl reading passages from the Book of Revelation, while for others it was overcoming the chaos found in a raid of 4,000 players," says Andrea Doyon, Human Equation's Chief Innovation Officer. "We still have a lot of people asking when they will have the chance to spend a sleepless night watching a wall filled with papers looking for potential clues."

Human Equation's representatives are currently at the Game Developers Conference and available for interviews.

About Funcom

Funcom is an independent developer and publisher of online games for PC and consoles. Funcom has provided outstanding entertainment since 1993 and continues to expand its track record of more than 20 released games. Recent titles include Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, The Longest Journey, Anarchy Online and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. For corporate information, please visit www.funcom.com. For information about Funcom games, visit www.anarchy-online.com, www.dreamfall.com, www.thesecretworld.com or www.ageofconan.com. Funcom is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker FUNCOM.

About Human Equation

Human Equation's entertainment division specializes in game development and gamification. The company worked on more than 350 digital projects and events in 22 countries with clients such as Funcom, WB Games Montreal, adidas, Reebok and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Employing 55 experts, Human Equation has established itself since 2007 in the gaming industry and has been named one of the fastest growing companies in Canada by Profit 500.