DeNA invests in social gaming developer Astro Ape

September 25, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

DeNA has invested an undisclosed amount in Astro Ape Studios an iPhone development studio focusing on next generation social gaming and best known for Office Heroes.

DeNA has a wide range of operations including social gaming, e-commerce, mobile phone related services and online advertising business. Its latest quarterly report puts it on track to create $1 billion in revenue this year. DeNA has been steadily increasing their American presence through strategic U.S. investments. They invested in mobile social gaming company, Aurora Feint; made a full acquisition of IceBreaker and most recently bought Mountain View-based developer Gameview Studios

USA, San Mateo, CA & Japan, Tokyo

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DeNA acquires Gameview, a leading developer of mobile social games

September 25, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

DeNA has acquired 100 percent of Gameview Studios, LLC, formally know as Bayview Labs, LLC

Based out of Mountain View, CA, Gameview creates social gaming applications on iDevices. Gameview has created the popular applications Tap Ranch, Tap Fish: Exotic, and Tap Birds, the last two which have been ranked No.1 among free apps in the App store.

Gameview has some new mobile apps in its pipeline and plans to provide new apps in the Android market. It aims to establish a firm position in the smartphone market going forward.

DeNA is aggressively investing in promising social application developers all over the world to promote their “X-device” “X-border” strategy of promoting game development across different mobile devices and borders

“Our acquisition of Gameview today is congruent with our goal of rapidly expanding our mobile footprint as a leading brand and platform in mobile social gaming,” says Tomoko Namba, CEO of DeNA. “We were impressed by the creativity and passion that the Gameview team has for creating addictive and engaging gaming experiences, we’re excited to welcome them into the DeNA family.”

Through this acquisition, DeNA will promote an alliance between Gameview and MiniNation, DeNA’s strategic subsidiary in the smartphone market. By leading Gameview’s socially-active users to the MiniNation platform, DeNA aims to energize activities on MiniNation platform and further increase the platform’s value.

“The overwhelmingly wide range of games and active users in the community are the formula for success DeNA has utilized on Mobage-town in Japan,” says Namba. “This acquisition will enable DeNA to replicate this success in the smartphone market and MiniNation platform, further expanding DeNA in the global market.”

DeNA has a wide range of operations including social gaming, e-commerce, mobile phone related services and online advertising business. Its latest quarterly report puts it on track to create $1 billion in revenue this year. DeNA has been steadily increasing their American presence through strategic U.S. investments. They invested in mobile social gaming company, Aurora Feint, and made a full acquisition of IceBreaker, DeNA.

This latest acquisition follows a series of moves by DeNA including a strategic partnership with Yahoo!, called Yahoo Mobage, and the creation of a $27.5 million incubation fund to promote social gaming.

USA, San Mateo, CA & Japan, Tokyo

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Zynga acquires Conduit Labs

August 19, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Zynga has acquired Boston-based social games company Conduit Labs. Effective immediately, the Conduit Labs office will become Zynga Boston, a new game studio focused on new product development. The acquisition expands Zynga’s studio operations adding to locations already in San Francisco, Austin, Baltimore, Bangalore, Beijing and Los Angeles. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Conduit Labs’s CEO, Nabeel Hyatt, will become head of the new Boston studio. The Conduit Labs team will be immediately integrated into Zynga’s workforce. Conduit Labs, founded in 2007 and funded by Charles River Ventures and Prism VentureWorks, has developed several free-to-play social games for the web.

“Boston is an epicenter for technology and has a strong talent market, making it an ideal location for us to expand operations,” said Mike Verdu, senior vice president of games at Zynga. “As one of the most prominent social game companies in Boston, the Conduit team shares a similar culture and drive with Zynga, and together we anticipate great successes from our new studio.”

Zynga is the world’s largest social game developer. More than 215 million monthly active users play its games. Zynga’s games include FarmVille, Treasure Isle, Zynga Poker, Mafia Wars, YoVille, Café World, FishVille, PetVille and FrontierVille. Zynga games are available on Facebook, MySpace and the iPhone.

USA, San Francisco, CA

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Zynga acquires social game developer Unoh

August 13, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Zynga has acquired Tokyo-based Unoh, one of Japan’s leading social games companies. Unoh will be part of the foundation of Zynga Japan’s mobile product efforts, which will be a joint venture between SoftBank Group and Zynga, accelerating Zynga Japan’s entry into the Japanese social gaming market.

Unoh is one of Japan’s pioneering social game companies, founded in 2001, with top hits Machitsuku!, Band Yarouyo!, and Kaizoku Chronicle. In addition to maintaining Unoh’s games on mixi, Mobage-town, and GREE, Zynga Japan will also localize Zynga games and develop new games targeted at the Japanese market.

“Zynga is delighted to welcome the Unoh team, one of the pioneer Japanese social game developers, to the Zynga family,” said Mark Pincus, CEO and Founder, Zynga. “The have a great track record of producing innovative, successful games are a complement to the top-notch team we have already begun to assemble in Japan.”

“We’re very excited to join Zynga to help extend its reach to Japanese consumers,” said Shintaro Yamada, founder and CEO, Unoh. “We’re looking forward to being an integral part of Zynga Japan’s leadership and growth, and are happy to support bringing the best social games to Japan’s cutting edge mobile and web technologies.”

Yamada will help lead Zynga Japan’s mobile efforts.

Zynga is the world’s largest social game developer. More than 230 million monthly active users play Zynga’s games include FarmVille, Treasure Isle, Zynga Poker, Mafia Wars, YoVille, Café World, FishVille, PetVille and FrontierVille. Zynga games are available on Facebook, MySpace and the iPhone. 

Location: USA, San Francisco, CA & Japan, Tokyo

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The9 invests in Aurora Feint

July 8, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

The9 Limited, an online game developer and operator in China, has made a strategic minority equity investment in Aurora Feint.

Based in Burlingame, California, Aurora Feint Inc. develops mobile games and operates OpenFeint, a leading mobile social platform and application for smartphones, OpenFeint includes a set of online game services such as leaderboards and achievements running in a cloud based web service operated by Aurora Feint Inc. OpenFeint’s developer SDK is a toolkit that can be integrated in any iPhone based game. Thousands of mobile game developers use OpenFeint and there are more than 28 million registered users and 2,200 games live in the Apple App Store. OpenFeint also announced OpenFeint X in 2010, which is a virtual goods management system that enables developers to build free-to-play social games for mobile phones.

Mr. Jun Zhu, The9’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We are confident of the prospect for this mobile platform and believe it will play an important role in the future development of global mobile internet. The investment in Aurora Feint is an important step of The9’s establishment of a mobile gaming platform and is also an integral part of our global strategy.”

Location: China, Shanghai & USA, Burlingame, CA

Ref: F231109-487

Related article – The9 Limited acquires a majority interest in Red 5 Studios Posted on March 24, 2010

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MTV Networks acquires Social Express

July 8, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, has acquired Social Express, a social gaming development company, marking the company’s first entry into the social gaming space.  MTV Networks will develop social games based on original IP, as well as shows and characters from MTV, Nickelodeon and its other brands, with the first game to be introduced in the third quarter of 2010.  MTV Networks will also leverage Social Express’s expertise to launch a publishing platform for independent game developers.  Based in San Francisco, Social Express’s veteran management team boasts former executives and developers from Apple, AOL, Yahoo! and Zynga.

“Social gaming is one of the biggest drivers of the explosive growth in social media – it’s fun, it’s engaging, and it’s shareable,” said Judy McGrath, Chairman and CEO of MTV Networks.  “Social Express brings us strong experience and know-how in this burgeoning space, which we’ll supercharge with the IP and scale of Nickelodeon and other MTV Networks brands to create great new social gaming experiences for our fans and cool tools for independent developers as well.”

Social Express will be integrated into Nickelodeon Digital, with Social Express co-founder and CEO Tony Espinoza overseeing social gaming strategy and development as Vice President and General Manager of Social Gaming for MTV Networks’ Nickelodeon Kids & Family Group.  Neil Souza, co-founder of Social Express and FoulPlay Media, will be Vice President of Technology, Social Games. Both will report to Dave Williams, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Games, Nickelodeon Kids & Family Group, who reports to Stephen Youngwood, Executive Vice President for Digital, Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids & Family Group.

“The Social Express team is a great addition to our gaming unit, and they are set to be a key part of our growth strategy,” said Youngwood.

In May, MTV Networks game sites attracted more than 22 million unique visitors and ranked as the number one destination in the online gaming category (MTV Networks game sites are a custom entity in ComScore – MMx). MTV Networks game sites include AddictingGames.com, Shockwave.com, Nick.com Games, Nick.com Arcade, Neopets, GameTrailers, and Xfire.  The acquisition of Social Express is the latest gaming initiative for the Nickelodeon Kids & Family Group, which has also launched AddictingGames on the iPhone with the AG iNetwork and introduced a virtual goods platform to the site in the past year. 

Location: USA, New York, NY & San Francisco, CA

Ref: F231109-486

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Playdom acquires Metaplace

July 8, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Social gaming company Playdom has acquired Metaplace, a privately held social gaming technology and game design company based in San Diego, California. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Raph Koster and John Donham founded their virtual world game engine development studio after leaving Sony Online Entertainment in 2006, following their groundbreaking work on such games as Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest II. For the last three years Metaplace has focused on building state-of-the-art virtual world and social gaming technology leading to the launch of the company’s first social games “Island Life” and “My Vineyard” in early 2010.

“Playdom is very excited to add the Metaplace game design group to its growing family of game studios,” said John Pleasants, Playdom CEO.

“We expect that the Metaplace social game engine will form a key part of our unified back-end technology platform for Playdom’s games going forward,” added David Sobeski, Playdom CTO. “We think the Metaplace engine is a competitive advantage in that it will take other companies years to duplicate its capabilities which will streamline and quicken our game development cycles.”

“We are thrilled to be joining the Playdom family and contributing to their stellar roster of social games with both new titles and technology,” said John Donham, CEO of Metaplace. “I look forward to running the Playdom-San Diego office while Raph continues his creative design work with Dan Yue, Playdom Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, and Jason Hable, Metaplace’s VP of Business Operations, moves to Mountain View to oversee Playdom’s company-wide Monetization efforts,” Donham concluded.

Metaplace is the latest in a long line of acquisitions for Playdom. Metaplace was funded by Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Crescendo Ventures and Charles River Ventures.

Location: USA, San Diego, CA

Ref: F231109-485

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The US M&A Market Heats Up

June 30, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

According to a report from The Jordan, Edmiston Group, the M&A market for media, information, marketing services, education and related technologies in the USA rebounded strongly in the first half of 2010, led by digital and technology‐driven businesses. 445 transactions with a total value of $21 billion were announced, reflecting a 52% increase in deal volume and a 291% surge in deal value over 1H 2009 levels.

Overall, six market sectors saw strong growth in M&A in the first half: B2B Online Media (number of deals up nearly 4x), B2C Online Media (+64%), Business‐to‐Business Media (up nearly 4x), Database & Information Services (+90%), Marketing & Interactive Services (+96%), and Mobile Media & Technology (+188%).

For more information see the Press Release.

Ref: F231109-524

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Playdom aquires Hive7

June 25, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Social gaming company Playdom has acquired Hive7.com, a privately held social gaming startup based in Palo Alto, California. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 2005, Hive7 focuses on building games played on Facebook and other social networks and is best known for Knighthood, a medieval themed game of combat and diplomacy. Its other titles on Facebook, Myspace, Bebo and other social networks include Youtopia, Kick-Off, and Sindicate.

“Our entire team is excited about joining forces with Playdom,” said Max Skibinsky, CEO of Hive7. “Gaining access to Playdom’s industry knowledge and resources represents a unique opportunity for our studio to operate on an entirely new scale.”

“We have moved our development studio into Playdom’s Mountain View office and are hard at work on our next title. We will continue to deliver enjoyable and engaging games to Playdom’s much larger player base,” added Dave Holt, COO and Executive Producer of Hive7.

“We welcome Hive7’s employees and contractors to our family,” said John Pleasants, CEO of Playdom. “Our studio structure enables us to add stand-alone development start-ups like Hive7 to our portfolio without disrupting the cohesion and collegiality that made it such a special place to work. By integrating with our innovative central services and business intelligence functions, Hive7 will be positioned to develop deeper and more compelling games.”

Location: USA, Mountain Views. CA

Ref: F231109-514

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Playdom raises additional £33 million

June 25, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Social gaming company Playdom has raised an additional $33,000,000 in venture capital financing. Joining Playdom’s existing cadre of venture capital backers are Bessemer Venture partners, Steamboat Ventures, and New World Ventures.

This additional financing brings the total amount raised by Playdom to $76,000,000 including amounts previously announced.

Location: USA, Mountain Views. CA

Ref: F231109-513

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