The success of Epic games has been a wild whirlwind in recent years and, after recently raising a massive $1.25 billion, it’s not surprising that they would look to make some acquisitions in order to set themselves up for continued success.
This time, it seems Epic Games want to get into the social game and have just acquired Houseparty – the so-called “Face to face social network”.
Epic Games announced the acquisition in a blog post this morning.
Houseparty was started in February 2016 – from the creators of the short-lived live broadcasting app Meerkat. After getting out of the live stream market, Houseparty was the next project from Ben Rubin and company – and it’s grown from strength to strength ever since.
Houseparty is a FaceTime-like app that’s popular with young kids and teens – meaning that it’s a good fit for Epic Games’ most popular audience.
“Houseparty brings people together, creating positive social interactions in real time,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said in a Media post announcing the news. “By teaming up, we can build even more fun, shared experiences than what could be achieved alone.”
According to sources, the acquisition isn’t going to mean any major changes to the app – at least for a while. The company says that the app will remain mostly the same – with features such as friendships and streaks set to remain.
“Joining Epic is a great step forward in achieving our mission of bringing empathy to online communication,” Houseparty CEO Sima Sistani said of the news. “We have a common vision to make human interaction easier and more enjoyable, and always with respect for user privacy.”
As antitrust measures are being considered against many big tech companies, many are keeping a close eye on the market to see if any major players in the tech space can break into the social market in a major way to provide competition for Facebook’s monopoly on the social space.
The terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed.
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