Playtika Holding Corp announced yesterday that they had invested into Turkish developer Ace Games, developer of match-3 game Fiona’s Farm, to the tune of $25m. The investment will be a minority, or non-controlling, investment which will free Ace Games to place the money where they believe it will do the most good in their business. Ace is formed of veterans from other game companies such Dream Games and Playrix, it was founded by Hakan Bas, formerly of Peak Games.
CEO of Playtika, Robert Antokol said of the move “Our investment in Ace Games is an important milestone in the execution of our new games investment strategy as Playtika continues to seek exposure to high-growth potential game IP in cost-effective ways.The talented team at Ace has built a best-in-class and innovative product on the ‘Match-3 and Meta’ game model. Playtika can greatly complement Ace with our LiveOps and Digital Studio capabilities, leveraging our enhanced monetization and game operations leadership in mobile gaming.”
More for Türkiye
This investment is another major one for the Turkish market and indicates investor optimism about the potential of Türkiye as a mobile game development nation. The outside investment from other, experienced companies in the mobile game development industry will aid in further developing the industry. Türkiye itself has a strong history of mobile game development that likely already makes it an appealing investment market, but strong growth in spite of economic circumstances will have helped too.
CEO of Ace Games, the previously mentioned Hakan Bas, was equally optimistic about the consequences of this investment “Playtika has an unrivalled reputation for delivering superior in-game experiences, scaling mobile games to global dominance in their respective categories.We are excited to be teaming up with Playtika as an investor and partner that will help us continue to grow this title, and possibly others, into leading mobile game franchises.”
Playtika has seen major success with a portfolio of casual games, and are likely aiming to invest into other companies that follow their model. Should Türkiye become an epicentre of casual gaming it may face stiff competition from other developers worldwide who specialise in this popular genre.
