Acclaim acquired by social publisher Playdom

Playdom has announced its acquisition of fellow free-to-play publisher Acclaim Games. The once-prominent third party publisher's name will live on as an internal studio at California-based Playdom and will continue on its new untitled Facebook game scheduled for release this summer. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Originally founded in 1987 as a publisher for consoles, PCs, and arcades, Acclaim enjoyed mixed success until its filing for bankruptcy in 2004. It was responsible for critically lauded titles, such as Turok and Burnout 1 and 2, as well as less warmly received titles, such as BMX XXX, Batman Forever, and Space Jam.

Following the breakup of the company, Throwback Entertainment purchased many of Acclaim's key intellectual properties, while former Activision executive Howard Marks purchased the brand name.

Marks went on to reboot Acclaim Games as a free-to-play games portal and has had success with the rhythm action game RockFree, which has 15 million registered players. Marks will continue to run Acclaim under Playdom and will step up to a senior strategic role at the parent company. Acclaim's previous chief technology officer, Neil Malhotra, will also step up as Playdom's senior technical officer. Acclaim had also employed veteran developer Dave Perry as its chief creative officer, though he left the company in December to focus on the Gaikai streaming game service.