Rovio acquires Ruby Games as part of their growth strategy. According to Rovio’s press release, the acquisition of the hyper-casual game developer will happen in parts.
The first payment will be $10 million for 20% of Ruby Games’ shares. After that, Rovio will buy the next 50% with the price depending on the studios’ performance. The acquisition of the remaining 30% will happen in 5 equal parts over 5 years.
The press release also brings up Ruby Games’ financials. From January to June 2021, the studio generated $7.8 million in revenue.
Alex Pelletier-Normand, Rovio’s CEO, commented on the acquisition. He stated that, with the acquisition of Ruby Games, Rovio takes an important step in their growth strategy. Entering the rapidly growing hyper-casual market will enrich their player base.
Mert Can Kurum, the CEO of Ruby Games, also released a statement about the acquisition. Kurum said that joining the company that created one of the most beloved brands in the mobile gaming world is exciting. He added that Rovio’s expertise in free-to-play games will help them grow.
With the deal, Rovio will increase their daily active users by counting in Ruby’s users. Ruby Games will maintain its headquarters and Kurum will stay as CEO.
Ruby Games and Hunter Assassin
Founded in 2018, and located in Izmir, Turkey, Ruby Games focuses on hyper-casual games. According to their website, they published 13 games, and 9 of them ranked in the top 10 in the US Top Charts. Additionally, according to the announcement, Ruby’s games have garnered more than 600 million downloads combined.
Their most recent game, Streamer Life, is doing well in terms of popularity. On iOS, the game is at almost 2 million downloads, according to GameRefinery.
While most of their games got a lot of downloads, Ruby Games’ most popular title is Hunter Assassin. This top-down action game was the sixth most downloaded game in the world in 2020, according to the press release.
Hunter Assassin currently has more than 100 million lifetime downloads on the Google Play Store. Meanwhile, GameRefinery shows the title at 18.7 million lifetime downloads on iOS.
Rovio and Their History of Acquisitions
While the creators of Angry Birds have certainly made a name for themselves, their history of M&A is not that long.
The first purchase happened in 2011 when Rovio acquired Kombo, a Helsinki-based animation company. A year later they acquired Futuremark Game Studios, a subsidiary of the benchmarking company Futuremark.
After a 5 year gap in acquisitions, Rovio opened a games studio in London in 2017 just to close it down a year later. In 2017, they also sold their animation division to former Rovio CEO, Mikael Hed.
In 2018 the company fully acquired PlayRaven, the developer behind strategy games like Eve: War of Ascension. Two years later, they acquired Darkfire Games and renamed them Rovio Copenhagen.
It seems that with the acquisition of Ruby Games, Rovio are ramping up their acquisitions strategy. Along with that, the past successes of the Turkish studio could very well continue, bringing a smile to their new owners.
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