Kabam buys 3D social game maker Gravity Bear

Core-targeted social game developer Kabam (Dragons of Atlantis) has acquired Gravity Bear, the Emeryville, CA-based company established by Flagship Studios co-founder Phil Shenk. Terms for the purchase were not disclosed. With this deal, Kabam will now take over a team that has experience developing 3D social games (its previous releases were all 2D), as Gravity Bear previously worked on Battle Punks, an action-based MMO that launched in 2010 but is no longer available on Facebook. Redwood City, CA-headquartered Kabam says absorbing Gravity Bear will expand its traditional strength in strategy titles to a broader range of core free-to-play gamers. They're already working together on a new 3D-accelerated social game set in the Battle Punks universe. Gravity Bear began working on the new game more than a year ago -- presumably not long after it took the original Battle Punks offline. The game is built on Adobe's 3D Stage technology, and will not require any plug-ins beyond Flash to play. Shenk founded Gravity Bear in late 2008, after working at Flagship Studios (Hellgate: London) as an art director. Before that, he held key art positions at Blizzard North and Maxis. He will continue to lead the Gravity Bear team under Kabam.