SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Kabam, the leader in the western world for free-to-play games for traditional players, today announced it has acquired San Francisco-based game studio Phoenix Age. The acquisition bolsters Kabam’s games catalogue with durable franchises in the role-playing game (RPG) genre across mobile and web platforms.
“We jumped at the opportunity to bring Phoenix Age into the Kabam family,” said Kabam Chief Operating Officer Kent Wakeford. “Phoenix Age’s hit games and world-class talent further solidify Kabam’s leadership role in the free-to-play games space while expanding Kabam into new genres.”
Founded in 2009, Phoenix Age created the popular Castle Age (available on Facebook and iOS) and Underworld Empire (iOS), both of which are on the top grossing charts on their respective platforms. Phoenix Age currently has a third, unannounced title in development. The company is located in downtown San Francisco and has 44 employees, who will continue to operate in their current offices. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“We couldn’t be more excited about joining Kabam,” said Edwin Shew, co-founder of Phoenix Age. “Becoming part of their team instantly gives us the expertise, experience and infrastructure to scale our games to a global level we couldn’t achieve independently.”
Phoenix Age is the first acquisition for Kabam in 2014, and continues the company’s growth strategy of acquiring innovative, industry-leading game studios. Since 2010, Kabam has acquired Exploding Barrel Games, WonderHill, Fearless Studios, Gravity Bear, Wild Shadow Studios and Balanced Worlds, producing such hits as Dragons of Atlantis and Fast & Furious 6: The Game. At the same time Kabam is deepening its ties to Hollywood to create blockbuster games such as The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth. Kabam continues to produce original hit games like Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North, and the company is aggressively expanding into publishing, striking deals top tier Asia game developers such as Joy You, Game Reign, WeMade, and Gfan.
Kabam is the leader in free-to-play games, with four games grossing more than $100 million by the end of 2013. With offices throughout the U.S. as well as China, Korea, England, Luxembourg, Germany and Canada, Kabam delivers hit games to global audiences to create long-lasting franchises. Kabam games are routinely among the top 25 grossing games on iOS and Android, and in 2013 Kabam had two of the top ten grossing apps on iOS. Kabam closed out 2013 with more than $360 million in revenues and projects revenues of $550 - $650 million this year.
About Kabam
Kabam is the leader in the western world for free-to-play games for traditional players with first and third party published titles available on mobile devices via the Apple App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore, and on the Web via Facebook, Yahoo!, Kabam.com and other platforms. Kabam is the fastest growing Internet media company in the San Francisco Bay Area and the 17th fastest growing company overall in the U.S., according to Deloitte LLP. Kabam's 2013 revenues exceeded $360 million, a 100 percent increase over 2012. The company is profitable and cash-flow positive, and has created four titles that have grossed more than $100M each in their life. Kabam's Kingdoms of Camelot franchise has grossed more than $250 million in less than four years, making it one of the top 10 strategy franchises of all time. In 2012, Kabam Publishing was launched to provide third-party developers access to Kabam's technology platform, distribution channels, data analytics and best practices that Kabam's in-house development teams use to bring wildly successful games to players worldwide. Kabam has approximately 750 employees around the world, with corporate headquarters in San Francisco. The company's investors include Google, Warner Brothers, MGM, Intel, Canaan Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Pinnacle Ventures and others. More information about Kabam can be found at www.kabam.com.
