Kingdoms of Camelot developer Kabam added a new team to its already rapidly expanding operations with its purchase of San Francisco-based social game studio Wonderhill. Terms for the acquisition, Kabam's first, were not disclosed
Founded in 2006, Kabam has opened studios in Redwood City, California, Saarbrucken, Germany, and Beijing, China. The company only had one location and 20 employees at the beginning of the year, but with this new purchase it now has four offices and more than 200 workers.
WonderHill currently has a variety of titles on Facebook, including
Dragons of Atlantis and
Tattoo City -- the latter of which is
its most popular with over 2 million monthly users. Kabam's 20 apps on the social network have a total of 8.2 million monthly players.
The 25-strong studio will serve as Kabam's San Francisco branch, and its co-founders James Currier and Stan Chudnovsky will stay on as advisors. Kabam says the team will complement its Redwood City headquarters, working on existing titles and building unannounced projects.
WonderHill's CEO James Currier says his studio was called on "by a large number of potential acquirers" after its release of strategy game
Dragons of Atlantis. He added that Kabam's similar focus on strategy games motivated his studio to combine forces instead of compete against the company.
"WonderHill’s talent, analytics technology, and culture of quality game development fits extremely well with our existing approach and portfolio," says Kabam CEO Kevin Chou.
He added, "WonderHill’s new direction in Flash-based strategy games with
Dragons of Atlantis makes them a perfect complement to Kabam as we aggressively grow our business in deeply engaging social games."
