OBJE acquires Novalon Games in push for ‘biometric gaming revolution’
OBJ Enterprises has announced that it has acquired development studio Novalon Games.
This isn’t the first involvement that OBJE has had in Novalon however. Last year, Novalon was founded as a joint venture between OBJE and Source Street. Now, by owning all of the company’s assets, OBJE says its ready to pivot itself into a major player in the gaming space, Reuters reported Monday.
The financial terms of this deal have not been disclosed.
Reported previously in BiometricUpdate.com, just last week, OBJE said it has been looking to capitalize on new trends in gaming, with particular emphasis on biometrics. Currently, OBJE’s gaming division, Obscene Interactive, makes games for the iTunes app store and Google Play store.
“We are in the very early stages of a biometric gaming revolution, and we plan to be well-positioned to share in extraordinary growth,” OBJE CEO Paul Watson said last week, seemingly foreshadowing today’s Novalon acquisition.
“In the coming months, we plan to dramatically increase the size of the development team and gaming portfolio at Novalon Games as we implement our new business strategy in the booming global gaming market,” Watson said in Monday’s Reuters report. “This acquisition is only the first of what we expect to be many as we strive to build a robust portfolio of engaging new content that can help us more effectively leverage emerging technologies such as biometrics, utility gaming apps and other monetization models to capitalize on the explosion in gaming across the globe.”
As we noted last week, OBJE certainly isn’t the only entity in the gaming space that’s looking to introduce biometrics — both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will feature biometrics to some degree.
In September, Sony confirmed that its new console will include facial recognition, through the use of a separately-sold Kinect-style camera. There were also previously rumors that Sony would say goodbye to its long-used DualShock in favour of a new controller which would feature fingerprint biometrics, though it appears that the controller will now be released without a sensor.
Earlier, in July, Microsoft confirmed that the Xbox One will not only include facial recognition, but will use it to target ads to its users. It’s also been rumored that the new Xbox console can measure heart rate based on a user’s skin color and transparency, though how this will be used by the system has yet to be seen.
Comments