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Valve buys tiny studio set up by former Plants vs. Zombies, Diablo 3 devs

Light shines on Star Filled Studios.

Valve has bought a tiny studio set up by former Plants vs. Zombies developers, ValveTime reports.

Valve acquired Star Filled Studios, founded by ex-PopCap and Blizzard employees, and intends for it to open a new Valve office in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“Our games are made to be playable by everyone and available on iPhone, Steam and many different platforms,” reads SFS's about page.

Star Filled is Jeff Gates, who made the cell stage of Spore for Maxis, worked on Blizzard's Diablo 3 and worked at Popcap with the team that made Plants vs. Zombies, and Tod Semple, who spent four years developing the game engine that eventually became Diablo 3 before moving to LucasArts to develop the game engine for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. More recently he was the programmer on the small team that made Plants vs. Zombies.

Valve is yet to announce the deal or reveal its plans for Star Filled. The Half-Life maker has a long history of buying developers. In early 2008 it bought Turtle Rock Studios, the studio behind Left 4 Dead.