Peak focuses on Arabic social games with Saudi studio acquisition

Peak Games (Happy Farm), which specializes in publishing social games for Turkey and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, has purchased Saudi developer Kammelna Games. Peak specializes in delivering localized and culturally-specific social games to the underserved but lucrative MENA territory, which it expects to have as many as 400 million social game players by 2015. The company believes this Kammelna acquisition will help establish its dominance in that market. The publisher claims that Saudi Arabia has one of the highest average revenue per user (ARPU) numbers for social games in the world, and that more than two-thirds of internet users in the country play games online. Kammelna users in particular play an average of more than one hour per session. Essam Alzamel, who founded Kammelna, will continue to run the studio in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Peak says that along with its office in Jordan, the company can extend its reach across the Arabian Peninsula, which includes other countries like Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Kammelna's flagship product is Baloot, a browser-based title based on the popular Middle Eastern card game of the same name. Peak intends to bring Baloot to new platforms like Facebook and mobile, while the studio continues to launch new Arabic card, board, and tabletop games online. Peak's catalog of social titles includes Halfquest's Arabic language farming sim Happy Farm, which has 6.8 million monthly users on Facebook. The publisher's entire lineup attracts a worldwide audience that's grown by 25 percent in the last quarter to more than 20 million active players. Peak Games is headquartered in Istanbul, and also has studios and offices in Ankara, Barcelona, Berlin and San Francisco. It's so far raised $19 million in funding, and recently acquired two Turkish strategy game developers, Umaykut and Erlikhan, to create core-targeted social games.