Gaming Giant PlayTech Acquires Games Studio YoYo Games

The London listed, online gaming giant PlayTech has just announced that they have acquired the Dundee Scotland games studio YoYo Games for the price tag of US$16.4m.

YoYo Games

YoYo Games specialises in online casual gaming, which is a form of gaming that requires little commitment, knowledge or skill on the behalf of the gamer in order for them to play or to enjoy a gaming experience.

A key component of the set-up at YoYo is their game development system known as the Game Maker:Studio (GMS), which is a multi-platform development tool which allows developers to create new games for mobile devices using a single programming code.

It is this flexibility and ease of use that has seen the GMS system become popular with game developers around the world, with over 750,000 users currently registered to use the system on a freemium basis, with additional services and solutions available as payable add-ons.

Games that have been created using the GMS system have been downloaded more than 5 million times by users, and are available on all of the most popular gaming platforms including Android, iOS, PlayStation, Windows 8 and Xbox.

PlayTech’s Acquisition of YoYo Games

PlayTech are looking to increase their presence in the casual gaming sphere, and as such this acquisition of YoYo seems like a natural fit.

PlayTech already develops casual games via an internal team known as Plamee, which was established in 2014 and employs over 120 games developers, and the addition of YoYo to the PlayTech team will indeed their strengthen their position.

The GMS system is perhaps the prize catch of the YoYo Games acquisition, and PlayTech may decide to utilise the system in much of their casual games development in the future.

PlayTech will now move forward into the casual gaming market with 3 distinct teams at their disposal – the existing Plamee; the newly purchased YoYo Games; and a number of third party game developers that they currently have commercial agreements with.