Kabam brings studio led by ex-Star Wars game maker to the social side

The "social" is strong with this one. (And that fills our cheesy joke quota for the day.) Kabam, the San Francisco-based creator of strategy social games like Edgeworld, has acquired Fearless Studios for an undisclosed amount. While the latter was gobbled up before it even released a game, Kabam appears confident in it's ability to usher the company into the 3D age of social games.

"Their skills in game design, emerging technologies and proficiency in making the transition from 2D to 3D on consoles mesh perfectly with Kabam's strategy," Kabam CEO Kevin Chou said in a release. "We'll significantly strengthen our industry leadership as the online gaming market transitions to higher fidelity, 3D gameplay with our acquisition of Fearless Studios."

The entire Fearless Studio team--led by founders Haden Blackman and Cedrick Collomb--will join Kabam in its San Francisco office. Blackman's best known for his contributions to LucasArts, namely the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed series for consoles. At one time, Fearless Studios had six games in the works, though none of them saw release.

Whether Kabam will pick those games up is unknown save for one: Kabam's VP of brand marketing and communications, Ted Simon, told Inside Social Games that the company will not resume development on an unannounced horror game. Kabam still isn't interested in console games, but rather using Fearless' 3D expertise to bring more visually-impressive social games to social networks like Hives and VZNet. Between this 3D push and bringing its games to the desktop, Kabam looks to up the ante where "hardcore" games are concerned.

[Image Credit: DesignYouTrust]

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