The company SciPlay, specializing mainly in social casinos, decided to enter the hyper-casual games market. She bought a controlling stake in the Turkish studio Alictus — author of Rob Master 3D and Money Buster!.
Money Buster!
According to SciPlay, now 80% of the studio’s shares have passed into her hands — she paid $ 100 million in cash for them.
Over the next five years, SciPlay will acquire the remaining 20% in equal shares, giving them a maximum of another $200 million. The exact amount depends on the financial performance of Alictus.
The entire management of Alictus will remain in place upon completion of the transaction. In particular, co-founders Emre Taş and Ecem Baran will continue to head the Turkish studio.
According to SciPlay, the purchase of Alictus will help both with expansion into the hyper-casual games market and with strengthening positions in the casual niche. In addition, the company expects to increase the DAU of its projects by 1.8 million people, and the MAU by 28 million people.
The Alictus advertising platform will also be used to diversify revenue.
Alictus was founded in 2013. Her portfolio includes titles such as Rob Master 3D, Money Buster!, Deep Clean Inc., Oh God and Collect Cubes. Each of them at one time took first place in the ranking of the most downloaded games of the month in the American App Store. In total, all the studio’s games have collected over 300 million downloads to date.
SciPlay was a division of Scientific Games until 2019, but then turned into its subsidiary. Among the most famous SciPlay projects are the social casinos Jackpot Party Casino and Gold Fish Casino, as well as the more casual Backgammon Live and Solitaire Pets Adventure.
In July last year, SciPlay announced the purchase of Finnish Koukoi Games, known for the runner Om Nom: Run.