Zinga Announced in August Acquisition of Istanbul-based Rollic, Developers and publishers of hyper-casual game hits such as Go Knots 3D and Tangle Master 3D. Today it says the deal is complete.
Zynga does not for clarity completely Own Rollic yet. Instead, there is an additional payment to buy 80% of the company for about $ 180 million in cash and get the remaining 20% over the next three years.
In anticipation of the deal closing, CEO Frank Jibo told me this was Zynga’s first move into the world of hyper-casual games. The game, as the title suggests, allows the player to perform simple tasks such as throwing a knife or tying a knot.
Rollic claimed to have succeeded in the area of ”everyone continued to call it a fad for the first three years.” He was particularly impressed with the company’s development process of quickly releasing games by managing a network of hundreds of developers.
“They already had some scale and speed and hit the ground, but we thought they could grow faster with us,” Gibaud said.
He was also impressed with the size of the audience. The integrated company has a total of 160 million monthly active users, of which 65 million appear to come from Rollic. And as Gibeau pointed out, the ability to reach and monetize a large audience without ad tracking becomes even more important thereafter. Apple’s looming changes, App developers need to allow users to opt out of tracking.
This is Zynga’s fourth acquisition in Istanbul.In fact, it Paid $ 1.8 Billion for Peak Games Just a few months before the Rollic deal. Asked if it would be difficult to get a new team to join if travel or face-to-face work is limited, Gibaud replied, “It takes a lot of zoom time, not face-to-face time.” ..
“The good news about this is obviously a very tragic situation, and the telecommuting environment is a big negative in many ways, but for game companies we’re in pretty good shape, right? Can be built. “
Gibaud also said the company is interested in making more acquisitions, but the strategy is “more than just a rollup.” Zynga has had ups and downs since it first rode the wave of Facebook games, but Gibeau said the company exceeded expectations with remarkable revenue growth. In recent quarter..
“I think we still have a lot to prove,” he said.
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