Kwalee, a main international video games writer and developer, has introduced that it has taken a stake in French cell recreation studio 8SEC. Kwalee’s CFO Matthew Farrow and VP of Mobile Publishing John Wright will be a part of their board.
8SEC has posted over ninety cell video games, attaining over 50 million recreation downloads with titles which includes Trivia.io, Hero Squad and Idle Army. They have been an early adopter of the Hybrid Casual fashion of cell recreation – clean to select out up however designed for long-time period play with sales from a mixture of advertisements and in-app purchases.
They will retain to perform independently out of places of work in Paris and Lyon, however with the introduced gain of Kwalee’s huge international crew and expert know-how in consumer acquisition, monetisation, recreation layout and records science. Kwalee has earned a popularity because the developer’s champion with a committed publishing crew entirely targeted on changing recreation ideas into worthwhile hits.
“We’re thrilled to spend money on proficient recreation studios like 8SEC, increase our attain withinside the marketplace and collaborate to assist them attain even more success” stated Kwalee’s CEO David Darling CBE.
“8SEC are famend for his or her excessive pleasant of manufacturing and improvement and are verified international chart toppers. They align flawlessly with our undertaking of creating the maximum amusing video games for the arena’s gamers and we’re excited to aid them with the records pushed techniques we use to scale video games globally.”
Louis Giraud, CEO of 8SEC stated: “I am pleased to announce this strategic partnership with Kwalee. This collaboration marks a good sized milestone for each corporations as we be a part of forces to create terrific video games in order to push the Hybrid Casual cell marketplace into the subsequent generation. We’re very excited for the destiny and are impatient to expose the arena the terrific mission we’re running on together!”
This is the second one strategic funding in France from Kwalee, following their acquisition of informal narrative recreation professionals Tictales in 2022. It additionally follows the current declaration that Kwalee have signed a Development and Publishing Agreement with Fahy Studios in Saudi Arabia, a part of the LevelUp accelerator at NEOM – a unique monetary area being fueled by $500 billion of funding from the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and nearby and global investors.
The funding in 8SEC comes at a difficult time in cell video games, wherein studio closures and deep layoffs mirror a aggressive and converting marketplace. Overturning this trend, the Kwalee crew stays positive that 2024 is the proper time to spend money on multi million degree offers to lower back new and mounted cell recreation studios.
Kwalee operates worldwide, with studios withinside the UK, India, Portugal and China. With a cell video games portfolio of over 70 hit video games, they’ve been a dominant pressure withinside the charts, attaining over 1 billion downloads in over a decade. In current years, they’ve assorted their providing to additionally consist of PC and console video games publishing and grown to a crew of over four hundred human beings worldwide.