IP E-Games eyes 2-3 new businesses

MANILA, Philippines - Listed gaming firm IP E-Game Ventures Inc. is looking to acquire two to three new businesses within the year, as part of its expansion plans.

“We’re looking at two to three (acquisitions),” Enrique Gonzalez, president and chief executive officer of E-Games said on the sidelines of local gaming event Domination 6 over the weekend.

“If I do my job well, we should do it all (acquisitions) within this year,” he added.

He said the new acquisitions the firm is looking at are in the hotel, resort, and food and beverage sector.

“E-games is expanding into other types of businesses like hotel, resort, food and beverage, so our expansion is really diversification. It’s about diversifying the business,” he said.

Last month, E-Games announced the acquisition of a 25 percent stake in Cosamera Resorts Corp. in the Cagayan Special Economic Zone and Freeport.

The firm had said the investment is in line with its plan of adding hotel, resorts and gaming businesses to its primary purpose.

Earlier this month, E-Games and Level Up! Inc. completed the merger of their online gaming publishing businesses.

E-Games is the listed online gaming unit of IPVG Corp., while Level Up! is owned by Tencent, China’s leading Internet service provider, and Naspers, which is behind online companies like Multiply.com and sulit.com.ph.

With the merger, E-Games game titles will be transferred to Level Up!

E-Games holds top massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) titles such as RAN Online, and Cabal Online.

Level Up! is behind MMORPG titles like Ragnarok Online, Rising Force Online and Flyff, among others.

Ben Colayco, founder of Level Up!, said in the same event that they plan to introduce two to three games within the year, apart from a new game to be announced this month.

He said they are also looking at coming up with games that can be played through mobile phones or social networking sites like Facebook, as more people are getting into it.

“I can’t give a timing but we have to look at it carefully...The people who play the Facebook stuff are a little different from the regular hard core brand players so we have to balance that carefully, but we do see an opportunity,” he said.