India-based game developer FXLabs Studios has announced it will acquire U.S.-based IMT, which owns the casual game portal Knibble.com, for $3 million in stock.
FXLabs says the acquisition marks its entry into casual online games, targeting players international and its own website will integrate Knibble's free-to-play titles with FXLab's proprietary PC digital download platform currently in development.
According to FXLabs, Knibble currently has over 10,000 online casual games available for download, and it also allows developers to submit their own, to be rated and tagged by users. FXLabs will also continue to develop its own games in-house, with titles in progress including
Archies and
Dhoom-2.
FXLabs has a studio in Hyderabad, and hopes the acquisition will support its expansion, offering it an online game development center in Chennai and a business development studio in San Francisco. Knibble games will be available and can be played from the iPhone, Nintendo Wii console and "other traditional and non-traditional gaming platforms."
Sashi Reddi, Founder and Chairman of FXLabs, said, "With the acquisition of Knibble we have expanded our capability from being a game developer to a company that will be directly delivering world-class game play experience to consumers globally. We are extremely optimistic about emerging markets like India driving worldwide online game revenues, and we believe that this is a terrific move for both FXLabs and Knibble."
