Free-to-play gaming company Kabam has acquired two Los Angeles-based gaming outfits, TapZen and Magic Pixel, and is putting its name on a new L.A.-area studio to house them.
Kabam Acquires TapZen and Magic Pixel, Will Open Los Angeles Studio
Also joining the company: Zynga and Electronic Arts veteran Mike Verdu.
This Means War / TapZen
The new Culver City office will be Kabam’s first in Hollywood, although the company has previously established ties to the movie industry through games based on “The Godfather,” “The Fast and the Furious” and “The Hobbit,” among others.
TapZen has only one game to its credit, 2014’s This Means War. Magic Pixel also worked on This Means War, as well as a handful of PlayStation games and another mobile title, Stick to It. The latter studio’s latest project is Outcast Odyssey, a mobile collectible card game published by Bandai Namco last October.
Outcast Odyssey fizzled at launch, briefly charting in the top 250 grossing iPad games in Korea and Singapore. It fared slightly better on iPhone, charting sporadically in Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S., according to App Annie.
This Means War performed much better, regularly charting in the top 250 grossing apps in several important countries, on both platforms.
Along with the acquisitions, TapZen CEO and former Zynga chief creative officer Mike Verdu will join Kabam’s executive team. A Kabam spokesperson said the company is not yet announcing Verdu’s specific role.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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