Boonty

Boonty Box

Type	Privately Held
Industry	video game industry, Interactive entertainment homepage = http://uk.boonty.com/
Founded	2001
Founder	Tomás Boonty
Headquarters	Paris, France; Singapore; Tokyo, Japan, Los Angeles

Boonty Box was a global supplier of digital distribution solutions for online and PC gaming^[1] whose technology platform and brand names were acquired by digital commerce provider Nexway in January 2009.

The company's white label casual game platform was utilized by over 100 million customers worldwide at the time of the Nexway acquisition, including Internet portals, ISPs, and mobile operators.

Boonty operated its own branded destination sites, Boonty.com which is still operated by Nexway in localized versions for the United States, France, UK, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Austria, Australia, Taiwan, Hong-Kong, Germany, Portugal, Finland, Singapore, The Netherlands, and Spain.^[2]

In October 2006, Boonty announced the acquisition of Beijing-based casual game developer Gamehub.^[3]

In February 2007, Boonty launched Cafe.com for free multiplayer social casual games.^[4]

In January 2009, Nexway acquired Boonty.^[5]

Corporate history

• Boonty was launched in Paris, France in 2001 by Mathieu Nouzareth, Romain Nouzareth and Tomás Boonty. Prior to creating Boonty, Mathieu founded WebConcept, one of the first e-business consulting companies in France, which he sold to Sweden’s IconMedialab (Euronext: icon) in 1999.^[6]

After entering the Asian gaming market, the company decided to launch its own gaming destination website based on free to play and micro-transaction.

• May 2007: Boonty acquires the Chinese Game Studio GameHub and opens Boonty China
• June 2007: Boonty acquires domain name cafe.com and start to operate the online game web site
• October 2008: Boonty launches Facebook app iscool
• December 2008: The company decides to sells its Digital Distribution Platform and the brand name Boonty to digital commerce provider Nexway
• January 2009: Boonty changes its name to Cafe.com

References

1. "Videogames". Warren's Consumer Electronics Daily. April 4, 2005.
2. Boonty.com
3. "Industry News Round Up: Boonty/Gamehub, PC Charts, Nikitova @ Xbox". Gamasutra. October 24, 2006.
4. David Laprad (March 2007). "Interview with Mathieu Nouzareth, Cafe.com". Gamezebo. Archived from the original on March 20, 2007. Retrieved 26 June 2007.
5. • "Nexway acquired Boonty". Gamesutra.
6. "Boonty - Profile". Alarm Clock Euro. Retrieved 18 October 2006.

Further reading

• "Boonty Rolls Out New Games Offering". Wireless Week. May 13, 2005.
• Charlotte Ong (April 26, 2005). "Casual Gamers are Serious Business". Digital Life.
• Ellie Gibson (13 May 2005). "Boonty Reveals Plans to Open New Mobile Games Store". Gamesindustry.biz. Retrieved 17 October 2006.

• "France Alert - Ten Web 2.0 Wonders". Alarm Clock Euro. May 16, 2007.
• Noah Gellman (23 March 2007). "Boonty: The Casual Gamer’s Playground". AlwaysOn. Archived from the original on 22 June 2007. Retrieved 26 June 2007.
• Om Malik (5 February 2007). "Are Social Networks Just a Feature?". GigaOm. Retrieved 26 June 2007.

• "Online gaming rewards in the news". Colloquy. September 7, 2006.
• "PlayFirst and Boonty Sign Game Distribution Agreement". Digital Producer. July 20, 2005.
• "Q&A: Boonty's Nouzareth Opens Casual Microtransactions". Gamasutra. March 15, 2007.

External links

• Nexway corporate site
• Nexway Games corporate site
• Boonty consumer site
• RSS Feed Boonty US
• Mathieu Nouzareth website
• Romain Nouzareth website