In this week’s edition of the Sunday Times, our CEO Danny Hammett spoke about his life thus far and his plans for KamaGames.
Danny has lived quite the life. He’s a former wrestler, a professional MotoGP racer and a computer games entrepreneur who sold his first company for more than $100m. He reckons that KamaGames, which set up its global headquarters in Dublin, might just be his final fling.
“I do think this will be my last gig” said Danny. “I would like to take KamaGames from where it is at, to be either acquired or be an acquirer of other companies, the same way I did with my other companies”
Danny discussed in detail how he got to this point in his career. He was the California state high school wresting champion which landed him a scholarship to the California Polytechnic State University in the 1980s. It was another hobby that lead to his first job – Racing Motorcycles. Danny said “I signed a deal for Honda and I got a chance to race all over the world”. However injury cut short his time on the circuit.
Danny’s first move into the gaming industry came with Spectrum Holobyte, later known as EA. He left Spectrum Holobyte for a new start up company Laser Soft, which distrbuted Doom on CD-Roms. Soon after, he decided to set up his own company, Head Games.
Head Games was extremely sucessful and companies including EA, Microsoft and Activisation wanted to acquire it. Danny sold the company to Activision in 1998 for a nine-figure sum, but stayed with the company as executive Vice Principle for five more years. In those 5 years Danny was involvement in games such as Tony Hawk and the development of Call of Duty.
Danny tried retiring after Activisation but he couldn’t do it, instead he took a job with Vivendi Universal. In 2007 Vivendi Universal and Activision merged in an $18 bn deal creating a new company called Activision Blizzard.
When the offer to head up KamaGames came along Danny jumped at it. He led the company through a recent $50m fundraising round and has already started to pick up brands which includes Manchester United Social Casino.
Danny has big plans for the company but is also warning that Ireland needs to improve the incentives that it is offering to games companies if it wants to compete globally. He said to “They (the government) have to do something here. I told the minister that I would be happy to work on a committee and work tirelessly to help them drive global businesses to do business in Ireland”
The full news article can be found in the July 5th edition of the Sunday Times. Why not try some of our latest games out including the Manchester United Casino. For more news from KamaGames, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google +