Kabam’s leaders offer mobile gaming lessons and a bittersweet goodbye

Kabam was one of the most inspiring rags-to-riches stories of modern gaming. Founded in 2008 by former University of California at Berkeley students, it started out as social game company Watercooler Games. It changed its name to Kabam and saw early success with titles like Kingdoms of Camelot and Dragons of Atlantis on Facebook’s explosive social network.

Then it pivoted away from Facebook, moved into mobile games, expanded worldwide, and circled its wagons around fewer, bigger, and better mobile games. By the end, it had huge hits like The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth and Marvel Contest of Champions. Kabam thinned out, reducing its staff from a peak of 800 employees, and spun out smaller and older titles. That drew suitors, and longtime CEO Kevin Chou and chief operating officer Kent Wakeford were faced with a dilemma.