With the mobile market taking off, Kabam, which started off in the social gaming scene, has chosen to shift its focus primarily to mobile with the sale of a number of its social titles to RockYou, according to Gamasutra. The deal, {link no longer active} which includes such titles as Kingdoms of Camelot, Dragons of Atlantis, Edgeworld, The Godfather and Glory of Rome, is set to be concluded in 2015, for a yet undisclosed sum.
However, it doesn’t cover all of Kabam’s social library, as some titles developed by third parties, or hosted through its website (such as Realm of the Mad God) will not be included, and shall continue to be where they’re positioned for the time being.
“We are concentrating all of our development might and muscle on mobile games for our core North American and European markets, and expansion to Asia,” said Kabam COO Kent Wakeford in a prepared press statement. “At the same time, we want to provide an established home for Kabam’s web games to benefit the fans who have played them for years, and for new players who will soon discover them on RockYou.”
RockYou recently made shifts to work more on getting social games on its advertising network, going as far as raising $10 million in funding through a financial startup earlier this year as part of the initiative.
Part of Kabam’s reasoning to moving to the mobile front may have something to do with its recent deal with Alibaba. Earlier in the year, the Chinese mobile giant invested $120 million in the company, getting in return the rights to publish the developer’s forthcoming mobile games, as well as a ten percent ownership. This could be big news for Alibaba’s mobile division in the coming year, and Kabam may have shifted over exclusively to that form of development to get the most out of the deal. Nothing’s been confirmed, however.
One thing’s for sure – social gamers will continue to benefit, and more mobile gamers will now be able to get the most out of what Kabam has to offer. So, everybody wins, it seems.
