Kabam acquires Vancouver studio Exploding Barrel Games | VentureBeat: "Kabam made a successful transition beyond Facebook in the past year, and now it is expanding again. The San Francisco free-to-play game company is acquiring Exploding Barrel Games, a 35-person development startup in Vancouver, Canada. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
As free-to-play social and mobile games become higher quality, Kabam has set its sights on matching the quality of console games, said Kevin Chou (pictured left), the chief executive of Kabam, in an interview with GamesBeat. And Exploding Barrel Games is full of people like Scott Blackwood (pictured right), the studio’s president, who worked at companies like Electronic Arts for years building franchises such as Need for Speed.
Most recently, Exploding Barrel worked on Margaritaville, a critically acclaimed Facebook game published by THQ. But THQ has struggled, filing for bankruptcy in December, and it is no longer focused on social games. That created an opportunity for Kabam, which has doubled down on its free-to-play game studios with multiple acquisitions. With the addition of Exploding Barrel, Kabam will have more than 600 employees."
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