MUMBAI: Indian video games developer FXLabs Studios has acquired Interactive Media Technology (IMT), Inc. for $3 million in stock. IMT is a US based company that owns online casual games portal Knibble.com.
 
With over 10,000 online causal games, which can be played for free, Knibble is currently the largest casual game site. In addition, it has also emerged as the best destination for game developers to showcase their talent, wherein registered members can submit new games, add a description, suggest a content rating and add tags.
 
FXLabs founder and chairman Sashi Reddi said, “With the acquisition of Knibble we have expanded our capability from being a game developer to a company that will be directly delivering world class game play experience to consumers globally. We are extremely optimistic about emerging markets like India driving worldwide online game revenues and we believe that this is a terrific move for both FXLabs and Knibble.”
 
“In addition to the international gaming community, Knibble’s association with the FXLabs brand will help us reach a much wider audience in India. With a portfolio of 10,000 plus games over multiple platforms, we are an attractive game destination for game enthusiasts world-wide,” said IMT founder and CEO Sashi Chimala.
 
With this acquisition, FXLabs is making a strong entry into the world of online casual games and it has already built in-house the expertise to design and develop state-of the art casual games. The company recently launched its revamped web site www.fxlabs.com, which now integrates the free game play of Knibble with a new digital download platform for the PC games that FXLabs is developing.
 
This acquisition makes FXLabs the leading online gaming company globally. It also facilitates the company’s expansion to reach international online game players, who are also its target audience for games like ‘Archies’ and ‘Dhoom-2’ that it is currently working on.
 
FXLabs has a state of the art game development studio in Hyderabad. With this acquisition FXLabs will expand its geographic presence to have an online game development center in Chennai as well as a business development office in San Francisco.
 
Knibble games will be available and canbe played from the iPhone, Nintendo Wii console and other traditional and non-traditional gaming platforms. Its unique web crawling technology automatically finds casual games from the internet and makes the games available for playing on the Portal. This truly makes FXLabs a ‘pioneer’ to foray into the exploding market for online casual games.