High Moon Studios, Inc. (formerly known as Sammy Entertainment Inc. and Sammy Studios, Inc.) is an American video game developer that was first created in 2001. After being an independent studio for almost a year, the company was bought by Vivendi Games in January 2006 and became part of Sierra Entertainment. It is now owned by Activision. The company has created several Transformers video games and helped develop some Call of Duty games, including Destiny.

History

High Moon Studios was created in April 2001 as part of Sammy, a Japanese company that was first called Sammy Entertainment and later renamed Sammy Studios in 2002. The studio was formed to make and sell video games in the United States. In 2004, Sammy merged with Sega to create a new company called Sega Sammy Holdings. At this time, Sammy stopped making video games in America and planned to close Sammy Studios. However, in March 2005, a group led by John Rowe, who became president and CEO, bought Sammy Studios and renamed it High Moon Studios. The studio focused only on game development and continued working on games it had started while it was called Sammy Studios, such as the Western horror shooter Darkwatch. In January 2006, Vivendi Universal Games announced it had purchased High Moon Studios. After Vivendi merged with Activision, High Moon became part of Activision.

After completing the game Deadpool, Activision reduced its workforce at High Moon Studios by 40 full-time employees who worked on the project. Activision explained, "Activision Publishing always works to match its expenses with its income. This is an ongoing process. With the completion of Deadpool, we are reducing staff at High Moon Studios to better match our development team with our current projects."