Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: avengers academy, Contest of Champions, entertainment, games, Kabam, marvel, Netmarble, transformers

Marvel Contest Of Champions – Under New Management

Published Sat, 31 Dec 2016 12:45:48 -0600

by Dan Wickline

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A little late to the party on this news, but it's pretty big if you are a player of the mobile Marvel Contest of Champions game. Kabam, the company that produced the game, has sold their Vancouver based studio to Netmarble Games, a mobile game publisher from South Korea. The terms of the deal, which is expected to close in early 2017, were not made available… but earlier this fall another Canadian studio made an unsolicited offer of $800 million. Kabam is expected to sell their other three studios (Los Angeles, San Francisco and Beijing) after the initial deal closes.

Kabam's Vancouver studio is responsible for Marvel Contest of Champions, a game with over 90 million installs and a gross revenue of $450 million since it's launch two years ago. They will also be releasing Transformer: Forged to Fight in the second quarter of 2017. The studio came out of Kabam's acquisition of Exploding Barrel Games back in 2013.

Along with the Vancouver studio, Netmarble will be getting the customer-support team from Austin, Tx. and part of the business development, marketing and user acquisition team in San Francisco. The company also the largest shareholder in Jam City, an L.A. based game company that recently acquired Tiny Co, the studio behind Marvel Avengers Academy and Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff. It's believed that Netmarble is trying to push more into Western markets before the company's IPO (initial public offering) set for later in 2017.

Kabam's Los Angeles studio is currently developing a game based on James Cameron's Avatar.

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