Arkadium Acquires Gamelab.com Domain, Zimmerman To Lead Free Design Workshops

New York-based casual and advergaming company Arkadium has acquired Diner Dash creator Gamelab's web domain, the company announced today. Through the deal, Gamelab co-founder Zimmerman will lead "The Game Development Design Series," a series of workshops on game design best practices, lessons and tips, free to New York developers beginning in the first quarter of 2010. "With this acquisition and workshop series our goal is to bring focus to the amazing games being created in New York," says Arkadium CEO Kenny Rosenblatt. "Eric Zimmerman and his team at Gamelab helped innovate game design through hit games such as Diner Dash and Subway Scramble. We’re proud that Arkadium is continuing that legacy of greatness." Gamelab announced in May of this year that it would close its physical offices after laying off 10 of its 25-person workforce. It's since been working on Gamestar Mechanic, a MacArthur Grant-funded multiplayer game for kids. Founded in 2001, Arkadium develops and serves over 250 Flash-based advertiser and casual games to a network including ABC, AARP, ESPN, Classmates and CBS. It claims over five million unique monthly users across all its games and over 120 million monthly page views on its partner sites. It currently employs a staff of 85.