A premature reveal?
Was the announcement of Blue Gem Gaming, a company that was supposed to take over offering games from Sheriff Gaming, just a premature announcement and all hope is lost for fans of those great games?
Sheriff Gaming was a developer of high quality 3D slots, based in Eindhoven, Netherlands with a B2B license from the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC). The company’s games were known for great graphics, animations and interesting themes with titles like The Amsterdam Masterplan or Dr Magoo’s Adventure reaching great levels of popularity. In September 2013 the AGCC has announced that is has suspended the license of into Sheriff’s parent company the Bubble Group. The suspension was a result of raids by Dutch police into the company, the owners of which have been accused of drug dealing, illegal gambling operations and money laundering.
Following the hearing in London on 29th, the AGCC has decided to continue the suspension of Bubble Group’s license, without providing any timeline or reason for the decision. Finally, the Commission has announced that it’s revoking the B2B gaming license of Bubble Group in February 2014 and a court in Oost-Brabant has declared Sheriff Gaming bankrupt.
Shortly after that, in March 2014, a company called Blue Gem Gaming has announced that it had acquired the full portfolio of Sheriff Gaming games. Blue Gem Gaming was said to be made up of software designers and programmers from Sheriff Gaming and revealed that it will be offering Sheriff Gaming slots to online operators. When the announcement was made, Blue Gem Gaming had a website up which read “Coming Soon”, but just a couple of days after it was removed. It was impossible to contact the company and no one knew what happened.
On March 24 the affiliate program of the ComeOn! Casino has made a Facebook post in which it informed affiliates that it had to remove Blue Gem Gaming slots from its site. The casino could not provide any additional information other than that Blue Gem Gaming is having technical difficulties and may not have their games back up. At the beginning of April iGaming Post has reported that, according to its sources, all assets (including games) of Sheriff Gaming have been seized as part of the investigation into senior executives of the company.
Will we ever be able to enjoy Sheriff Gaming’s slots again? The current situation seems to indicate that they may have been lost completely due to circumstances of their creators, but nothing can be said for sure until the investigation of Dutch authorities is completed. While Sheriff Gaming is no more, it may be possible that their games will end up in hands of another developer, although it seems unlikely that it will be Blue Gem Gaming.
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