May 31st, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »
Oberon has just completed their second acquisition in the mobile
games space as they bought mobile gaming publisher I-Play to extend
their mobile reach.
With the acquisition, I-Play’s David Gosen will now lead Oberon Media’s mobile gaming division and is expected to also be in charge over Blaze, a mobile developer/publisher that was acquired in November 2006 by Oberon.
Oberon’s strategy will now be a triple play one where they follow in the footsteps of Real to be able to release their newest casual games on all platforms at the same time. Together with the acquisition, Oberon announced to have received new funding from existing and new investors including Goldman Sachsm Oak inventment and Lehman Brothers.
Combined, Oberon and I-Play have over 350 distribution partners and more then 1000 revenue engines on carrier networks.
“This acquisition strengthens Oberon Media’s multi-platform strategy and we are now positioned as the undisputed leader in one of the hottest growth markets: mass-market casual games,” said Tomer Ben-Kiki, CEO and Co-Founder, Oberon Media. “The acquisition bolsters the mobile arm of the industry’s first true casual-game triple play, complementing Oberon Media’s existing platform. We are now poised to revolutionize the casual games category, offering our partners access to more than a thousand of the most popular casual games, delivered to their consumers’ ‘screen of choice’: online, mobile and TV.”
“We welcome the support and confidence in our vision and the company’s growth prospects that this latest round of financing represents,” added Tal Kerret, Chairman and Co-Founder, Oberon Media. “We will leverage this added support to continue executing on our vision to make casual games globally available across all types of media.”
In contrast to the acquisition of Blaze, I-Play will keep functioning fully under their current name and brand. The assets acquired from Blaze included the Mophun gaming platform and various (branded) mobile games on Symbian and J2me including Carmageddon, the Conflict series and The Davinci Code.
“Oberon Media and I-play are a perfect strategic fit, sharing the same casual philosophy and consumer-centric approach to the games market,” said David Gosen, I-play CEO. “I-play brings some of the most successful game franchises on mobile, deep global distribution and powerful proprietary technology. Oberon Media’s online distribution will propel the growth of mobile games by driving awareness and accessibility, while complementing and working in partnership with traditional on-deck distribution.”
Though the amount of the transaction is not disclosed, Mobile Entertainment Magazine expects it to be around $ 100 million.
