Oberon Media raises $20 million for casual gaming exploits
Game developer Oberon Media on Monday announced that it landed $20 million in additional funding from the Infinity I-China Fund to help it grow its mobile and casual gaming business.
Acquiring the funding is part of a global strategy by Oberon Media to expand its business overseas and establish a foothold in China--a key battleground for casual gaming services.
For its part, Infinity's investment in Oberon is just another example of companies trying to capitalize on the explosive growth in the casual gaming market. Casual gaming is a $2.25 billion business, according to research from the Casual Games Association (PDF), and much of that growth is coming from Asia, thanks to services like China's QQ.
Oberon Media will attempt to set itself apart by doing more than offering casual games to consumers, though. Instead, the company, which partners with major corporations like Microsoft, Comcast, and Sprint, will use its Game Center platform to create revenue-fetching titles that offer advertising opportunities, traffic, and gameplay optimization, digital rights management, and data mining to maximize the profitability of partner games.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
