By Khurram Aziz email: k.aziz@mobilenapps.com | Jan 15, 2013 12:21 PM EST
San Francisco-based mobile and social games developer Kabam has bought Vancouver start-up Exploding Barrel Games for an undisclosed sum.
The deal is the latest in a series of acquisitions made by Kabam since 2010, which include WonderHill, Fearless Studios, Gravity Bear, Wild Shadow Studios and Balanced Worlds.
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Kabam has made a successful transition from games on Facebook to smartphone games available for Android and iOS. Its Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North was Apple's highest grossing app in 2012: a year in which Kabam grew its revenues more than 60 percent above its 2011 revenue of $100 million. The company now earns more than 70 percent of its revenues from Web and mobile games with titles such as: Kingdoms of Camelot, which has generated more than $100 million since its launch in September 2009, and The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth.
The 35-person team of Exploding Barrel Games is based in Vancouver's Gastown district, where it's currently working on three unannounced games and just launched the robot artillery game Blastron in the Canadian iTunes store. The company is also known for the game Top Bar and Margaritaville Online, which it made for THQ. The company was founded in 2009 by Scott Blackwood after he left Electronic Arts.
"Kabam continues to grow our global studio team with the best talent in the world," said Andrew Sheppard, Kabam's President of Studios, in a press release. "With experience working on multi-billion dollar franchises like Need for Speed and EA Sports titles, and developing blockbusters in nearly every core genre, the team at Exploding Barrel Games is a perfect complement to Kabam's mission to blend the art of game design with the science of free-to-play distribution."
Kabam has raised a total of $125 million in venture capital since its inception and can now boast over 600 employees with the latest additions.
"Exploding Barrel Games makes triple-A free-to-play games and is growing our team here in Vancouver," said Scott Blackwood, President, Exploding Barrel Games. "We're excited to join Kabam's global studios team and continue to bring the art of great game design to connected devices, with thrilling, high-quality games that rival what's available on consoles. If you'd like to join our team we'd love to hear from you."
Kabam says it is committed to growing at a "measured" pace and now has development studios in Beijing, Germany, Texas and, now, Vancouver.
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