China continues to excite the mobile games market with high-profile deals. Moreover, this time the amount of the agreement almost reached $1 mdr. A little less than this amount was laid out by Zhongji Holding for the authors of Family Farm and Barn Voyage.
We were very impressed with this transaction, but not only because of the amount, which, firstly, is rather big in itself, and secondly, clearly exceeds the real value of DianDian Interactive. It’s all about who laid out the money.
The main business of Shanghai Zhongji Holding is far from mobile technologies and IT. The company is engaged in metal trading, real estate and the sale of building materials. So the mentioned transaction becomes one of the first in which a heavily industrial business steps on the path of absorbing the mobile business.
The game publisher The Fun Plus Group acted as the seller of DianDian Interactive. He received $960 million from the concern and, in fact, was left without his main developer of hits. However, given the amount of the transaction, he is unlikely to lose.
As for DianDian Interactive itself, so far its main games have been Barn Voyage, Family Farm and Royal Story, a clone of the first Farmville, Hay Day and CastleVille, respectively.
The studio’s monthly earnings are $6 million, $4 million of which is net profit. The total DAU of all studio projects currently reaches 4 million.
According to the terms of the deal, as far as can be understood from the available materials, the team will work on current projects for the next three years. In total, the studio now has 120 people.
A source: http://www.insidemobileapps.com