From Wooga to Innplay Labs: Inside Playtika’s shopping spree | Pocket Gamer.biz
Playtika has been at the forefront of the M&A space since 2018, when it created a $400 million investment arm as part of its ongoing aims to corner the mobile gaming market. In that time, the company has gone from strength to strength, albeit with some recent turbulence, and helped to make Israel one of mobile gaming’s most exciting markets.
In total, Israel’s gaming industry was worth $9 billion as of September 2022, with social and casual titles in particular enjoying a competitive edge due to the data analytics industries and expertise within the country, and as a result 74% of Israel’s mobile gaming workforce specialises in these genres, with casual titles accounting for 54.9% of the company’s revenue as of November.
Playtika was previously identified as Israel’s most successful gaming company, and it’s easy to see why – with a slate of successful first party IP’s such as June’s Journey and Bingo Blitz, as well as the acquisition of some of mobile gaming’s most exciting developers, the company has put itself at an advantageous position not just in Israel, but in the mobile gaming ecosystem at large.
However, we would be remiss to omit some of the company’s struggles over the past 12 months. From the closure of its Helsinki studio Seriously in October 2022 to the layoffs of over 600 employees to the high-profile breakdown of acquisition talks with a major Finnish studio (more on them later), Playtika has faced its fair share of turbulence, eventually halting the development of new games and leading to claims that one of the leading acquirers in the space could itself be the target of an acquisition.
However, things seem to be looking up in recent months, with a small but significant boost to its investment rating from “Underperform” to “Neutral”. Playtika, it seems, was down but not out, and it’s since resumed its acquisition strategy.
So where have Playtika been focusing their energy? Well…
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