(MILAN, ITALY) (July 11, 2011,) — Atlantyca Entertainment, a corporation based in Milan with affiliates in Beijing and New York, and specialized in the development of trans-media projects based on publishing properties, as well as holder of the international rights on the Geronimo Stilton brand, has established Atlantyca-LAB: a new enterprise focusing on 360° research and development. Atlantyca-LAB will be dedicated to the world of videogames, apps, content for and from the web, exploiting the brands and copyrights owned by Atlantyca and Atlantyca Dreamfarm as well as acquiring new properties. The announcement was made by Pietro Marietti, CEO of Atlantyca Entertainment.

In times such as these, where both media and storytelling are undergoing important changes, Atlantyca LAB can be considered a base for contact, dialogue and exchange between classical and traditional publishing production and the steadily evolving world of videogame research and development, independent studies, game and experience designers and finally APP thinkers, in short, all the realities that act within the scope of the new media world.

The new company’s main goal will be to make contacts, know-how, creativity and most of all Atlantyca Entertainment’s international scouting and planning formula to enhance and implement the realization of winning products for digital enthusiasts all over the world. This will be done in line with the principles applicable to trans-media storytelling and content creation that, starting from a visionary definition of a fantastic world, gradually develops into various means of communication, from books to movies, from videogames to immersive marketing.

Pierdomenico Baccalario, author and Publisher-in-Chief at Atlantyca Entertainment, will serve as Managing Director and will be supported by the most important experts in the sector, identified and selected to give their personal “touch” to the numerous projects under study. Worth mentioning in this start-up phase are: Emanuele Vietina (Vice-President of Lucca Comics & Games) and Alessandro Cavaleri (a young researcher and expert of the Italian videogame phenomenon).

All brands consolidated in the copyright portfolio of Atlantyca Entertainment, such as Geronimo Stilton, Ulysses Moore, Agatha Mistery, Klincus Corteccia, Bat Pat… and those under development, or any others acquired in the future to generate new content, will be available to the developers.

Atlantyca-LAB has set itself up as a true creativity and talent lab, a supporting asset aimed at conceiving and developing new intellectual properties and new business sectors. Authors, planners, graphic designers and programmers will thus be able to work together and create an Italian “brand wave” of products able to assert themselves on international markets and last through time like the surge of sea waves.

Pietro Marietti, who in 2006 founded Atlantyca S.p.A. talks about his latest ideas as a true “dream maker”: “I must admit that when Pierdomenico (Baccalario) told me about his idea I was rather skeptical and reluctant; Atlantyca Entertainment was then and still is an irrepressible breeding ground of ideas, rapidly turning into brand/products. With such feverish activity how could we find time for such a new and important project?

“Soon, however, the opportunity to experiment with trans-media storytelling principles, which we had already been working on for quite some time, naturally led to make the project part of the activities in progress, whose main goal is the valorization of creativity and young talents. Hence the establishment of Atlantyca-LAB.”

Pierdomenico Baccalario will introduce the new company at the second edition of Far Game, to be held in Bologna on May 27 and 28, an event sponsored and supported by the Videogame Archive of the Film Library of Bologna, the Science and Communication Department of the University of Bologna, and AESVI, the Trade Association representing Videogame Producers in Italy.

Chris Arrant

Latest News from Cartoon Brew