Skill Gaming Dutch Deal
Published: Saturday, February 11, 2006 Online-Casinos.com
SKILL GAMING DUTCH DEAL
Euro 17.2 million paid for Zylom
The Seattle based provider of downloadable soft games and music owned by Rod Glaser, RealNetworks, picked up Dutch skill games developer Zylom Media Group for a cool Euro 17.2 million this week, paving the way for it to become another major player in the burgeoning skill games sector.
Zylom was founded in 2001 in Eindhoven, and has been developing skill games such as Mirror Magic and Hotel Solitaire for the European market. It operates and distributes its products through its Zylom.com website and through partnership agreements with companies such as Wanadoo, AOL and Yahoo!.
Zylom turnover for 2005 was around US$8 million with net profit of around US$ 750 000. RealNetworks spokesmen said they expected Zylom to be "...slightly accretive to 2006 earnings with contributions to earnings increasing in future years”.
Rutger Pieters, chief executive of Zylom, said that by teaming up with RealNetworks his company could become the strongest casual games company in Europe. "Our combined strengths will allow us to deliver the very best games and services to our portal and ISP partners throughout the European market," he said.
Zylom's development team and management will remain based in Eindhoven, Holland.
