We have advised the management team of British indie games studio The Chinese Room on their buyout from Sumo Digital.

The studio is known for first-person narrative-centric games such as Dear Esther, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, and recent BAFTA-award-winning Still Wakes the Deep.

Our team was led by corporate partner Ed Lane, supported by senior associate Alex Gays and associate Elizabeth Compton. Partner Mark Phillips advised on commercial games matters, senior associate Mark Primrose on employment matters, partner Shireen Peermohamed on IP matters and associate Lauren Probert on real estate matters.

On working with Harbottle & Lewis, studio director at The Chinese Room, Ed Daly commented: “Ed Lane and the team at Harbottle & Lewis were a great help throughout the process. It was important to find advisors with an understanding of the game development business and I look forward to our continuing to work together in this next exciting phase for the studio.”

Ed Lane added: “We are delighted to have been able to support Ed and the whole team at The Chinese Room on their journey towards independence – we can’t wait to see what they do next! Against the backdrop of a challenging few years for independent games developers, this is a massive ‘good news story’ and we are proud to have played a small part – indies are a key part of what we do.”

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Ed Lane Partner

Ed advises founders, businesses and investors on a broad range of corporate, corporate finance and commercial matters.

Ed advises founders, businesses and investors on a broad range of corporate, corporate finance and commercial matters.

He has a particular interest and expertise in the creative industries, including film and TV, video games and music, and in the broader media, entertainment and technology sectors.

His practice spans mergers and acquisitions, fundraises from pre-seed to series A and beyond, startups, growth equity investments, public takeovers, joint ventures, management incentive arrangements, including EMI options, and SEIS/EIS investments. He is actively involved as a speaker and mentor for a number of different industry accelerators and trade bodies, including Indielab, BAFTA and UKIE.

Ed trained and qualified at Linklaters, where he spent five and a half years in the private equity M&A team acting for a variety of private equity houses and businesses on leveraged and non-leveraged buy-outs, growth equity investments, exits, management incentive arrangements and bolt-on acquisitions.

Ed is ranked as a key lawyer in The Legal 500 UK guide, and is noted for his “sector expertise”, “encyclopaedic memory” and his willingness to “go the extra mile to get the best deal.”