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Electronic Arts acquires social dev KlickNation, turns it into BioWare Social

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BioWare has been putting an increasing focus on capturing the hearts and minds of community-minded gamers in recent years. The developer known for its deep, largely solitary RPG has attempted to galvanize its sizable fanbase with socially oriented games/cross-promotions like the Facebook title Dragon Age Legends. Now the studio’s parent company, publisher Electronic Arts, is stepping up to increase BioWare’s social presence with the acquisition of developer KlickNation.

The studio, now renamed BioWare Social, officially falls under the BioWare label, gamesindustry.biz reports. “KlickNation’s expertise in building innovative and compelling RPGs for social platforms makes them a seamless tuck-in with the BioWare team at EA,” BioWare co-founder and label SVP Ray Muzyka said.

“We share the same creative values. The new BioWare Social unit will bring BioWare and EA franchises to the growing audience of core gamers who are looking for high quality, rich gameplay experiences on social platforms.”

KlickNation is known for its work on the social titles Superhero City, Age of Champions, Starship Command: Battle for Earth and the recently released Six Gun Galaxy, which actually looks a lot like the old Fallout games.

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Adam Rosenberg
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Previously, Adam worked in the games press as a freelance writer and critic for a range of outlets, including Digital Trends…
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