Zynga’s quest for world domination continues today, as the social gaming giant acquires the assets of German game engine developer Dextrose AG. Zynga has been growing fast and on an acquisition tear this year, buying up XPD in Beijing, Unoh Games in Tokyo, Conduit Labs in Boston, and Challenge Games in Austin.
Dextrose AG develops a commercial game engine for pluginless browser games. Called “Aves Engine,” the game engine technology allows developers to build any type of web based 2D or 2.5D game using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Similar to the nature of the company’s previous acquisitions, the Dextrose AG team will become Zynga Germany (based in Frankfurt). This will be the company’s first engineering presence in Europe (the company has an operational office in Dublin). Joining Zynga from Dextrose AG is co-founder Paul Bakaus, who will become CTO of Zynga Germany. Bakaus is a jQuery core team member, and helped create the user interface framework jQuery UI. Fellow Dextrose founder Rocco Di Leo will become Country Manager at Zynga Germany, responsible for all processes and organization involved in the development of future browser game technology.
Of course, with big profits and armed with a massive war chest (which recently got $150 million larger thanks to Softbank Capital), Zynga has more than enough cash to make these acquisitions. And the company is expanding through a number of high-profile partnerships, including deals with Google, Facebook and Yahoo.
Dextrose AG is a privately held corporation based in Germany and was founded by Rocco Di Leo in September 2009. Dextrose is building the first commercial game engine for pluginless browser games. The Aves Engine is a professional game engine to build any type of web based 2D or 2.5D game by using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, giving game studios the power to deliver stunning games for all kinds of genres on multiple platforms.
Zynga was founded in July 2007 by Mark Pincus and is named for his late American Bulldog, Zinga. Loyal and spirited, Zinga’s name is a nod to a legendary African warrior queen. The early supporting founding team included Eric Schiermeyer, Michael Luxton, Justin Waldron, Kyle Stewart, Scott Dale, John Doerr, Steve Schoettler, Kevin Hagan, and Andrew Trader. Zynga’s mission is connecting the world through games. Everyday millions of people interact with their friends and express their unique personalities through our...
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