German start up flaregames has raised €8 million euros over the past couple of months.

The reasons for that investment have now become clear with the announcement it's formed a joint venture with fellow German developer keen games.

Called Keen Flare, flaregames provides the financing, taking majority control with 51 percent of the shares.

Joint managing directors Klaas Kersting and Pete Walentin are the CEO and COO of flaregames and keen games respectively.

Bright star

Based in Frankfurt, Keen Flare will be developing free-to-play games for mobile platforms. Its first title is expected to be released in the summer of 2012.

As its part of the deal, keen games provides its manpower (it's currently 10-strong and hiring), cross-platform technology and production expertise. It's been developing games for over 17 years, recently several games in the Anno and Secret Files series.

Flaregames was set up in the summer of 2011, but as-yet has failed to release any games, with its signature Flatmates location-based title being delayed several times.

Hooking up with an experienced outfit such as keen games will enable it to better manage the development process.

Two to play

"With this new company, we are significantly expanding our development capacity for triple-A mobile games," said Klaas Kersting, CEO of flaregames.

"Our esteemed colleagues from keen are an ideal partner, considering their enormous track record, their quality technology and decades of experience."

"The partnership with flaregames, given their profound knowledge in the field of free2play and a very good position as developers, will help us to establish ourselves in this emerging market," added Pete Walentin, COO of keen games.