High Moon Studios

High Moon Studios (formerly Sammy Studios) is an American video game developer that used to be a part of Sierra Entertainment. After a period as an independent studio, the developer was acquired by Vivendi Games in January 2006 and retained the current name. It is now owned by Activision Blizzard, a parent company of Activision. It has developed multiple Transformers video games as well as assisting in the development of both Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Destiny.

History
Originally owned and operated by the Japanese publisher Sammy, the former Sammy Studios, Inc. established itself as an independent developer following Sammy's pull-out of American development in efforts to focus on its Japanese productions. In March 2005, the company announced that it had completed a management buyout from Sammy Corporation, and had changed its name to High Moon Studios, Inc., with CEO John Rowe heading the developer's continuing North American efforts on previous games from Sammy Studios and other titles, including the macabre shooter Darkwatch. In January 2006, it was announced that Vivendi Universal Games had acquired High Moon Studios. John Rowe, president and CEO of High Moon, continues to manage the studio from Carlsbad, California. After the merger of Vivendi and Activision, the studio became a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard. Following the completion of Deadpool, Activision fired 40 full-time employees from High Moon Studios that worked on the project. Activision made this statement: "Activision Publishing consistently works to align its costs with its revenues – this is an ongoing process, with the completion of development on Deadpool, we are taking a reduction in staff at High Moon Studios to better align our development talent against our slate."