Playdom is really on a roll. It seems like every week the social games company is either announcing partnerships (like the ESPN deal) or acquisitions (like the recent Merscom purchase). Today, Playdom boosted its roster of talent by acquiring Acclaim Games, which at one time was a powerhouse in this industry. When the old Acclaim went out of business, Howard Marks took control of it in 2006 and transformed the publisher into an online-focused, free-to-play game company.
Acclaim has over 15 million registered online users playing its games, such as Facebook guitar title RockFree, which just launched in March and has tens of thousands of daily active users. Acclaim is now working on a new Facebook game due to launch this summer.
“Joining forces with Playdom is a natural fit,” said Howard Marks, CEO of Acclaim. “Both companies share the vision of connecting people globally through quality social games. Our deep expertise in building multi player online games and Playdom’s vast player community will help us bring out the next generation of social games.”
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but Acclaim will be integrated into the Playdom studio structure and will continue to be overseen by Marks, who will also "serve in a senior strategic role for the parent company focused on Playdom’s business development activities." Additionally, Acclaim’s Chief Technology Officer, Neil Malhotra, will now serve as the studio’s senior technical officer.
"Bringing Howard and Neil into Playdom strengthens our leadership and bolsters our position as an innovative games developer for the future,” said John Pleasants, CEO of Playdom. “Howard and Neil have worked together building and operating games for many years, and their pipeline of new games is strong. We are also excited about opening our first Los Angeles based social game development studio which gives us access to all of the game development talent in Southern California. We look forward to big things from this team.”
Playdom raised $43 million last November and has been on a buying spree; Acclaim games marks the seventh acquisition since the infusion of capital.
