14 DAY TRIAL // Zynga, the well known social video game developer, has announced that it has completed the acquisition of Bonfire Studios, which is based in Dallas and is lead by developers who have previously worked for real time strategy developer Ensemble Studios, which was closed down last year.
The founders of the company are David Rippy, who is the president and the Chief Executive Officer, Bill Jackson, who will remain as the creative director and Scott Winsett, as senior art director.
Since it was founded Bonfire Studios has created a casual strategy game called We Farm which launched on Apple gaming devices.
The studio will now be renamed Zynga Dallas and is set to create original intellectual properties for the firm.
2010 has been a busy year in terms of acquisitions for Zynga which has picked up: XPD Media in Beijing, Unoh in Tokyo, Challenge Games in Austin and Conduit Labs in Cambridge.
The company also expanded to Japan, as part of a strategy to establish a global presence and develop more video games that use its trademark mix of addiction and social content.
Zynga has recently appointed David Ko, a veteran coming from Yahoo, as senior vice president in charge of mobile operations, suggesting that it will focus on drawing a bigger audience on Apple and Android powered phones.
Ensemble Studios was one of the best known and most loved developers in the world of video games, with their biggest claim to fame being the creation of the Age of Empires series, which managed to mix classic strategy gameplay and innovation over a period of close to ten years.
Ensemble also created a spin off from the Master Chief dominated universe, Halo Wars, which offered a real time strategy experience that pitted the UNSC against the Covenant.
After the game was completed the studio was closed down and its staff formed new companies.
One of them, Robot Entertainment, is now creating Age of Empires Online, which will offer a free to play experience.