 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 2007 |
| Founders |
|
| Headquarters | Dundee, Scotland, UK |
Key people | Russell Kay (Senior Product Director) |
| Products | GameMaker |
| Parent | Playtech (2015–2021) Opera (2021–present) |
| Website | gamemaker |
YoYo Games is a British software development company based in Dundee, Scotland. From February 2015 to January 2021, the company was owned by Playtech; afterwards, it was sold to Opera to launch its new gaming division.
YoYo Games was founded in 2007 by Michel Cassius, Sandy Duncan, Spencer Hyman and James North-Hearn, former entertainment and video game industry executives. Duncan was appointed chief executive officer of the company. [1] On 26 January 2007, Mark Overmars announced his partnership with a company based in Dundee, Scotland, called YoYo Games. [2] [3]
The company established its European office in Dundee in May 2010 by opening an office within Abertay University with two team members. [4] The company currently employs more than 25 employees. [5] YoYo Games has announced plans to create an additional 25 positions, over the next 18 months, in systems development, software engineering, sales and customer service. [6] The employees will be hired to help the company keep pace with the rapid evolution of the global games market and demand for Game Maker: Studio. [7] To accommodate this expansion, in June 2013, YoYo Games moved from its old location within Abertay University [7] into new office space on Dundee’s Waterfront redevelopment. [5] On 16 February 2015 it was announced that Playtech acquired YoYo Games for £10.65 million (USD$16.4 million). [8] [9] Shortly thereafter, Duncan stepped down from his position. [10] He was later replaced by James Cox as general manager, who himself stepped down in October 2018 to be replaced by Stuart Poole in January 2019. [11]
Playtech sold YoYo Games to Opera for US$10 million in January 2021. Opera announced with YoYo's acquisition, it was launching a new Opera Gaming division alongside their browser software. [12] [13]
In February 2021, Stuart Poole left the role of General Manager and Russell Kay was named Senior Product Director (Head of GameMaker) [14]
Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was 148,210, giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or 6,420/sq mi, the second-highest in Scotland. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea. Under the name of Dundee City, it forms one of the 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland.
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the designers and programmers responsible for its games as "software artists". EA published numerous games and some productivity software for personal computers, all of which were developed by external individuals or groups until 1987's Skate or Die! The company shifted toward internal game studios, often through acquisitions, such as Distinctive Software becoming EA Canada in 1991.
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993.
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Opera Limited is a multinational technology conglomerate holding company headquartered in Oslo, Norway with additional offices in Europe, China, and Africa, and incorporated under the laws of the Cayman Islands as an exempt company with limited liability. Opera offers a range of products and services that include a variety of PC and mobile web browsers, GameMaker and gaming portals, the Opera News content recommendation products, the Opera Ads platform, and a number of Web3 and e-commerce products and services. The company's total user base is 311 million monthly active users.
GameMaker is a series of cross-platform game engines created by Mark Overmars in 1999 and developed by YoYo Games since 2007. The latest iteration of GameMaker was released in 2022.
Abertay University, formerly the University of Abertay Dundee, is a public university in the city of Dundee, Scotland. In 1872, Sir David Baxter, 1st Baronet of Kilmaron, left a bequest for the establishment of a mechanics' institute in Dundee and the Dundee Institute of Technology was formed in 1888. As early as 1902 it was recognised by the Scottish Education Department as an educational hub, and was one of the first to be designated a central institution, akin to an "industrial university". Abertay gained university status in 1994.
Markus Hendrik Overmars is a Dutch computer scientist and teacher of game programming known for his game development application GameMaker. GameMaker lets people create computer games using a drag-and-drop interface. He is the former head of the Center for Geometry, Imaging, and Virtual Environments at Utrecht University, in the Netherlands. This research center concentrates on computational geometry and its application in areas like computer graphics, robotics, geographic information systems, imaging, multimedia, virtual environments, and games.
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Realtime Worlds Ltd. was a British video game developer based in Dundee. The studio was formed in February 2000 as Rage Software hired David Jones to lead its Scottish operations. In March 2002, a financially stricken Rage Software sold the studio to Jones, who renamed it Real Time Worlds. After developing Crackdown (2007) and APB: All Points Bulletin (2009), Realtime Worlds filed for administration in August 2010.
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Rockstar Dundee Limited is a British video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Dundee. The studio is best known for developing Crackdown 2.
Team17 Group plc is a British video game developer and publisher based in Wakefield, England. The venture was created in December 1990 through the merger of British publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish developer Team 7. At the time, the two companies consisted of and were led by Michael Robinson, Martyn Brown and Debbie Bestwick, and Andreas Tadic, Rico Holmes and Peter Tuleby, respectively. Bestwick later became Team17's chief executive officer until 1 January 2024. After their first game, Full Contact (1991) for the Amiga, the studio followed up with multiple number-one releases on that platform and saw major success with Andy Davidson's Worms in 1995, the resulting franchise of which still remains as the company's primary development output, having developed over 20 entries in it.
Scopely, Inc. is an American interactive entertainment company and mobile-first video game developer and publisher. The company is headquartered in Culver City, California, with offices across the US, EMEA and Asia.
deltaDNA is a game analytics and personalization company founded in 2011 in Edinburgh, Scotland as Games Analytics, it rebranded in 2014, as deltaDNA. The company develops and markets an analytics and marketing platform for games that are primarily in the free-to-play market, and offers consultation services for game developers and publishers. The platform can be used to segment players based on their behaviour and ability, and then to augment their game experience. Real-time data collection and interactive analysis of the data is made possible by utilizing the VoltDB NewSQL relational database.
Michael Dailly is a Scottish video game designer, best known for designing Lemmings and the original prototype of Grand Theft Auto, and is one of the four founders of DMA Design, alongside David Jones, Russell Kay, and Steve Hammond.
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