Digital Distribution Provider Boonty Acquired By Nexway

PC casual and online game distributor Boonty has been acquired by French company Nexway, with the combined businesses now planning to target both casual and more hardcore online audiences. Nexway is already a digital distributor of software and video games in Europe, acting via its network of channels on major European Internet portals and as a service provider for publishers, including EA and Symantec. The company’s stated goal is to become the leading specialist of video games digital distribution. To this end it has signed recent distribution agreements with publishers such as THQ and Sega. Boonty has operated its own games portal since 2001, and its founders, Mathieu and Roman Nouzareth, will continue to own and independently operate the more recently launched Cafe.com portal. The acquired firm has a catalogue of more than 7,000 PC and mobile titles, with distribution agreements with the likes of Atari, Ubisoft, Acclaim, Eidos, Big Fish Games and Codemasters. Nexway now intends to build a global video games offering including both casual and "gamer" titles. The company’s workforce will now rise to 125 employees in over 12 countries, as a result of the Boonty acquisition. "We are particularly happy about this acquisition, since it emphasizes our presence on the video games market worldwide and asserts our positioning as the leading European digital distributor dedicated to assisting publishers with their online software and video game sales," said Nexway CEO Gilles Ridel. "It is a great pleasure to achieve this venture with Nexway, whose dynamism and good health are compelling advantages for the future, and that strengthens Nexway’s position on the casual segment worldwide," added Cafe.com CEO Mathieu Nouzareth.