Bluesphere: rumors say Game Over!?

September 19th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Ok, again its rumor time, but this time we can’t find anyone to point the finger toward if it’s not true. So we will not say that we received several emails that Blue Sphere is bankrupt. We never received those, I repeat, we never received those! It would just be a shame to see one of the companies from the good old days to go down

Jamba sold off to News Corp

September 13th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Jamba, which was in the hands of security company Verisign, has been sold off to News Corp. News Corp has put $ 187,5 million on the table to acquire 51% of the company. The name Jamba will be kept, but the name Jamster, which is used primarily in the US and the UK, will probably get deprecated. Jamba will be merged with News Corp daughter Mobizzo. The two companies together should boost the overall News Corp results in the segment as Mobizzo hasn’t been profitable. One of the main Jamba products has been the Crazy Frog which lead the company to crazy turnovers as they grew from $ 30 million in 2003 to $ 500 million in 2005.

Vivendi to acquire Centerscore

September 13th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Vivendi announced on their website the acquisition of Centerscore, a mobile studio that has released several award winning titles. With the acquisition, Vivendi hopes to accelerate their growth into the market.

"The Vivendi Games Mobile division is gaining good traction in the worldwide mobile marketplace," said Cindy Cook, chief strategy and marketing officer for Vivendi Games. "The addition of the Centerscore team is another step in our plan to be among the top mobile publishers in the industry."

"Centerscore’s imaginative games have consistently been top sellers; and the diverse lineup of titles, particularly their excellent range of casual games, is a welcome addition to our existing portfolio," said Paul Maglione, president, Vivendi Games Mobile. "What we found most exceptional about Centerscore is the Company’s ability to successfully build a team of designers, artists, developers and testers from the ground up, and to execute the creation and distribution of great games from under one roof."

"As a young, creative team built around developing original games, Centerscore was hesitant to join a large company. However, Vivendi Games Mobile has the vision, the strength and the people with heart to make them an oustanding market leader," said Oliver Miao, CEO of Centerscore. "We are truly thrilled to join the Vivendi Games Mobile team in delivering exciting, new games to everyday people."

Universomo acquires the Aukio Group

September 7th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Our friends at QB just announced that Universomo has acquired PC and Mobile developer Aukio Group. They didn’t say what the amount is, but it’s interesting to see an acquisition where a mobile developer gains PC development.

InfoSpace reacts on Elkware news

September 7th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

This afternoon we where in contact with Infospace around the recent news that spread around the net. This is the reaction from the InfoSpace spokesman;

"In an effort to improve operating efficiencies, InfoSpace is consolidating its mobile gaming business into two studios.  As part of this process, activities currently carried out by the Hamburg, Germany games studio and its supporting functions will be transferred to the UK and San Mateo, California studios."

So unlike the messages that reached us say, InfoSpace has carefully planned out this change and it is part of their company strategy.

Sennari to haul in a $ 10 million funding

September 7th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Sennari keeps hitting the headlines. It’s not new distribution or new titles this time, but the most recent round of funding. Previously, Sennari already collected $ 2 million and % 5 million in funding, making this the biggest round. Sennari has collected $ 10 million with the help of Mayfield Fund. Other existing investors also joined in this round.

Elkware in problems?

September 7th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

I admit it’s a bit hard to publish this as I don’t want to work with just rumors, especially as we like the guys and what they do a lot. However after reading an email this morning about the whole situation at Elkware studio’s, I’d like to post a small snippet. The whole game development had already moved to the UK, but according to the email, the complete Elkware studio seems to be on the verge of shutting down. We don’t know anything more then the emails that are coming in and hope Infospace will soon come with a more official message about what is going to happen.

Mobile Casino afloat on LSE

September 4th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Mobile gambling technology company Probability Games (founded in 2003) has been successfully floated on the London Stock Exchange last week. Probability Games is the first mobile gambling company to hit the LSE. They raised GBP 4.1 million at 76p per share. Their stock symbol is PBTY.

Upstart sold to China

September 1st, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Irish based developer Upstart Games has been acquired by China’s second largest privately owned media company Sun TV Shops. Under the terms of the acquisition, Upstart will be fully owned by Sun Media Investment Holdings. Though initial plans where to start a VC between upstart and STVS, Upstart will now be used by STVS as a distribution arm into Europe.

"We’ve been working with Sun TV trying to extend our distribution into the Chinese market," O’Neill told ENN. "When we started working closer with them, we saw the library of media assets which they control and saw that it could be of benefit to form close links with the company.” said Brian O’Neill, "We have developed a number of tools and technologies which are primarily used in games but can actually be very easily applied to other content. What the deal means for us is that we can now extend our content offering. This doesn’t mean that we’re giving up games because that’s obviously our core business but it means that we’re branching out into other areas."

HandyGames also open to acquisition

August 31st, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Following the interview with Karl Woods, we started to look around which other mid-size independent publishers might be open to acquisition. After asking several people in the industry, our focus is on HandyGames. In the Mobile Media magazine of the 11th of August, they already said to de talking around.

Christopher Kassulke, CEO of HandyGames didn’t want to go into details, but did tell us when an acquisition makes sense for the company, they might consider it. However they are surely not interested in just the first one that pops up with a bag of money. The future of the company is the prime objective if anything happens in this field.