Playdom has been restless and extremely active in the social gaming arena announcing special partnerships and acquisitions at a higher frequency then any other player in the space. Adding to their palette is the latest acquisition of the casual and MMORPG game publisher Acclaim Games. Playdom’s continued shopping spree indicates the importance of using funds wisely and quickly as companies vie for top talent and technologies in the rugged social gaming landscape.
Playdom is using its $43 million that it raised in November wisely. This acquisition marks its 5th recent investment, after acquiring Offbeat Creations, Three Melons and Merscom and investment of $5M in Argentenian-based MetroGames. Acclaim is a strong player in the casual and MMORPG gaming space, with many free-to-play titles published that can be accessed through the company’s website. It has also forayed into the Facebook arena releasing a synchronous rhythm based casual game called RockFree currently at 370,000 MAUs.
“Joining forces with Playdom is a natural fit,” said Howard Marks, CEO of Acclaim. “Both companies share the vision of connecting people globally through quality social games. Our deep expertise in building multi player online games and Playdom’s vast player community will help us bring out the next generation of social games.”
Marks, a former Activision 2.0 co-founder and Chairman of the Activision Studios, will be in charge of the Acclaim studio for Playdom and serve in a senior strategic business development role. Neil Malhotra, Acclaim’s CTO, will also remain with the parent company, taking on the senior technical officer.
“Bringing Howard and Neil into Playdom strengthens our leadership and bolsters our position as an innovative games developer for the future,” said John Pleasants, CEO of Playdom. “Howard and Neil have worked together building and operating games for many years, and their pipeline of new games is strong. We are also excited about opening our first Los Angeles based social game development studio which gives us access to all of the game development talent in Southern California. We look forward to big things from this team.”
Some may remember that Acclaim Games is the same company that once had rights to games like Mortal Kombat and was one of the premiere game makers on the planet. Those days are long gone, and that company in fact went bankrupt before this new “Acclaim Games” team was resuscitated.
