Blue Lava founder teams up with former NOA president

Having sold his first company, Blue Lava Wireless, to mobile giants Jamdat last April, millionaire entrepreneur Henk Rogers is set to exit the wireless and establish three new technology companies.

Blue Lava Wireless was sold to Jamdat for USD 137 million - half in cash and the remainder in company stock. In less than a year since the completion of that deal, EA has agreed to acquire Jamdat, effectively bolstering Rogers' income by a further USD 108 million.

Upon completion of the EA/Jamdat merger, Rogers intends to exit the mobile games market in pursuit of new enterprise, beginning with the formation of a company specialising in online virtual avatars.

According to a report in Pacific Business News, Rogers sees a great deal of opportunity in the creation of virtual avatars - the digital representation of a person within a video game - and aims to exploit this opportunity within the casual online games market.

Temporarily named after its four founders, Rogers Hashimoto Sato Kawai will be established to tap into the casual games market and develop a virtual avatar service for games such as poker and solitaire.

Tetris Online Incorporated, Rogers' second company, will set out to further extend the phenomenal popularity of the famous Russian puzzle game by offering online multiplayer games for a nominal monthly fee.

"Online gaming is dominated by two types of games - free ones and those that can cost more than USD 20 per month to play," Rogers told Pacific Business News. "It's free junk and amazing stuff for ridiculous amounts of money - there's got to be a middle ground."

Tetris Online will include access to other low-level casual titles, such as parlour and card games, for a nominal fee of just USD 3 per month.

The announcement has generated much attention in the gaming press, largely due to the revelation that Rogers' co-founder is former Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa, who left NOA in 2002 after 22 years of service.

Whilst overseeing the development and growth of his two new companies, Rogers is also set to launch Blue Lava Technologies, a company providing digital photography services online - offering unlimited server storage and a range of photography slideshow presentations.

It is believed that Rogers will undertake his new business ventures upon completion of Electronic Arts' acquisition of Jamdat, which is expected to complete by March 31st.