 | |
| Formerly | Spill Group (2001–2008) |
|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Founders |
|
| Headquarters | , Netherlands |
| Parent | Azerion(2020–present) |
| Website | spilgames |
Spil Games is a Dutch video game developer based in Hilversum. The company publishes free-to-play games for Android and iOS devices, as well as for the Facebook Platform. [1]
Peter Driessen and Bennie Eeftink founded Spill Group in 2001. [2] [3] The company launched its first games website, spelletjes.nl, in 2004. [2]
In 2007, Spill Group acquired a majority share in the Chinese game development company zLong and began producing games. In 2007, portals were also expanded to the US and UK. [4]
The 2008 acquisition of the MMO (massive multiplayer online) site/community, onrpg.com, moved the company into the MMORPG segment.[ citation needed ]
In July 2008, Spill group changed the company name and rebranded to Spil Games.[ citation needed ]
In 2012, it was reported that Spil Games' U.S.-based tween girl GirlsGoGames.com was one of the top websites that U.S. girls visited when online. Girls most frequently played games that involved cooking, dress-up, and quizzes. The most popular game girls played on GirlsGoGames.com was Pet Party. [5]
In total, Spil Games expanded its segmented and localized approach with more than 50 websites where people can play games online in 20 languages.[ citation needed ]
In May 2014 the company announced that it will let go of a substantial portion of its workforce – 90 out of 240 full-time positions – as a result of a move from website to mobile and tablet games. [6]
In September 2014, the company reorganised, closing its Dutch development studio and concentrating on mobile game publishing. [7]
In February 2015, a new CEO was appointed. Tung Nguyen-Khac had been CEO of the gaming division of the German television company ProSiebenSat1. Venturebeat said of the move: "With the mobile-gaming industry growing to $25 billion in 2014, it's not surprising that a company like Spil would look for new leadership to help get a bigger piece of that action." [8] On 16, August, 2016 Spil Games announced it achieved 100 million downloads in the last 12 months. PocketGamer said of the announcement that Spil "had originally hoped to reach this milestone by the end of 2016, and has now revised its goal up to 150 million for the end of the year" [9]
By February 2017, the company had achieved 200 million mobile downloads. [10] This grew to 250 million by July 2017. [11] The company announced it hit 300 million installs in March 2018 with the growth being 95% organic. VentureBeat stated this is, "a testament to the company's method of testing titles on the web and then reposting the most popular titles as mobile apps. [12]
On 24 May 2018, it was announced Spil's COO Timm Geyer had been named the company's new CEO. As reported by PocketGamer.biz [13] his focus will be building on Spil's strategy of bringing its most successful web IPs to mobile.[ citation needed ]
In the first part of 2016, the company announced and launched several game brands. In February 2016, it purchased the rights to the classic game Creatures [14] In April 2016, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell announced that he would be working with Spil to develop several new mobile games. [15] In May 2016, Spil Games acquired the browser game portal Mousebreaker. [16]
Europacorp, Luc Besson's film studio, selected Spil Games to create the official mobile game for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, the director's upcoming $180M sci-fi movie. [17] The company revealed the first details about the game in May 2017. [18]
Facebook chose [19] Spil Games as a launch partner for Instant Games on 29 November. Spil's Endless Lake is one of 17 games to be featured in Instant Games where players can play games directly on Messenger or their Facebook News Feed. Three weeks later Facebook named Endless Lake as on its Games of the Year. [20] Spil Games launched its second Instant Games, Tomb Runner, in April 2017. [21]
In May 2017, Spil Games launched Operate Now: Hospital a hospital simulation game for iOS and Android. [22] The game exceeded 10 million installs in 6 months. [23]
Spil Games published Mahjong Crimes in November 2017; a new game bringing together Mahjong solitaire and the murder mystery Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. [24]
In June 2019, Azerion acquired Spil Games' mobile games division, alongside a 5% stake in the company itself, to undisclosed terms. [3] [25] Azerion subsequently acquired the remainder of Spil Games in February 2020 and installed Erol Erturk as managing director. [25]
In mobile, the company started from nowhere and had 50 million installs in 2015. [26] By February 2017, the company had achieved 200 million mobile downloads. [27] In March 2018 the company hit 300 million installs. [28] Installs are driven by games like the Troll Face Quest series, which has racked up 100 million installs, Uphill Rush, which has garnered 25 million downloads, and Operate Now: Hospital, which has 15 million. [29]
Miniclip SA, simply known as Miniclip, is a Swiss mobile game publisher and former browser game website that was first launched on 30 March 2001. It was started by Robert Small and Tihan Presbie with a budget of £40,000. In 2008, Miniclip was valued at over £275 million. In 2018, the company gained over $400 million in revenue through its mobile gaming hit, 8 Ball Pool.
EA Mobile Inc. is an American video game development studio of the publisher Electronic Arts (EA) for mobile platforms.
Kongregate is an American web gaming portal and video game publisher. Its website features over 124,000 online games and 30+ mobile games available to the public. The company also publishes games for PC, mobile, and home consoles. It was purchased by GameStop Corporation in 2010 before being acquired by Modern Times Group MT AB in 2017.
King, also known as King Digital Entertainment, is a Swedish video game developer and publisher that specialises in social games. Headquartered in Stockholm and London, and incorporated as King.com Limited in St. Julian's, Malta, King rose to prominence after releasing the cross-platform title Candy Crush Saga in 2012. It is considered as one of the most financially successful games utilising the freemium model. King was acquired by Activision Blizzard in February 2016 for US$5.9 billion, and operates as its own entity within that company. King is led by Riccardo Zacconi, who has served in the role of chief executive officer since co-founding the company in 2003. Gerhard Florin took over Melvyn Morris's role as chairman in November 2014. As of 2017, King employs 2,000 people.
Wooga is a German game software company based in Berlin that develops story-driven casual games for mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets and social networks like Facebook. It has developed mobile games such as June's Journey, Pearl's Peril and Switchcraft. The company is part of the social games company Playtika. Their name comes from the words "World of Gaming".
Pocket Gamer is a video game website and former print magazine that focuses on mobile, portable and handheld games. It was launched in 2005 by Steel Media Limited.
Rovio Entertainment Oyj is a Finnish video game developer based in Espoo. Founded in 2003 by Helsinki University of Technology students Niklas Hed, Jarno Väkeväinen and Kim Dikert, the company is best known for the Angry Birds franchise. The company currently operates studios in Espoo, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Montreal.
Jam City, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Culver City, California. The company was founded in 2010 by Chris DeWolfe, Colin Digiaro, Aber Whitcomb, and Josh Yguado. Jam City has nine studios located in the United States, Canada, South America, and Europe. As of 2021, it employs 825 people. Netmarble is the largest shareholder in Jam City. As of 2021, Jam City's games have 31 million monthly active users and 1.3 billion total downloads.
Kwalee Ltd. is a British video game developer and publisher. The company was founded in May 2011 by David Darling, co-founder and former CEO of Codemasters who is hailed as one of the 'founding fathers' of the UK games industry. The company publishes games on mobile, PC and console platforms. It is known for its hypercasual games for iOS and Android devices, with a large internal development studio helping the company to more than 700 million game downloads in total. Based in Leamington Spa in the county of Warwickshire, Kwalee is one of the several companies that make up the Leamington Spa video gaming cluster.
Woozworld is a virtual gaming community and social network service founded in 2009 and headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Woozworld allows users to connect with each other through customizable profiles and interactive activities.
Sonic Dash is a 2013 endless runner mobile game developed by Hardlight and published by Japanese game studio Sega. It is Hardlight's second Sonic the Hedgehog game, the first being 2012's Sonic Jump. The game was released in March 2013 for iOS, November 2013 for Android, and December 2014 for Windows Phone and Windows, along with an arcade release in November 2015 as Sonic Dash Extreme. It was initially released as a paid application, but was made free-to-play a month after its iOS release.
SYBO Games is a Danish video game company located in Copenhagen, Denmark founded by Sylvester Rishøj Jensen and Bodie Jahn-Mulliner. SYBO is mainly known for being the creators and intellectual property owners of the second-most-downloaded mobile-runner game, Subway Surfers, which SYBO co-developed with Kiloo. SYBO has also released a second mobile runner game titled Blades of Brim. Like Subway Surfers, Blades of Brim is also an endless runner freemium title with in-app purchases. SYBO was among the first seven Snapchat games with Subway Surfers Airtime, released late 2019.
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.
Ketchapp SARL is a French video game publisher based in Paris, specializing in the mobile games market. Founded in 2014 by brothers Antoine and Michel Morcos, the company first came into the public eye later that year, through its port of the open-source game 2048. Ketchapp has been accused of cloning popular casual games by other developers. When Ketchapp was acquired by Ubisoft in September 2016, the company had more than 700 million downloads across their portfolio of games.
CM Games is an Estonian independent video game developer and publisher based in Tallinn, Estonia.
Plarium Global Ltd. is a video game developer, publisher and subsidiary of the Australian gambling machine manufacturer Aristocrat Leisure. It is known for creating mobile, desktop and browser games in various genres including MMO, RPG, action, strategy, and casual.
FunPlus is a video game developer and publisher headquartered in Switzerland, with operations in China, Singapore and Spain. The company has developed the following mobile games: State of Survival, Frost & Flame: King of Avalon, Guns of Glory: Lost Island, Stormshot: Isle of Adventure and Sea of Conquest: Pirate War.
Voodoo SAS is a French video game developer and publisher based in Paris. The company was founded in 2013 by Alexandre Yazdi and Laurent Ritter. Voodoo's games, predominantly free-to-play "hyper-casual games", have been collectively downloaded 5 billion times as of May 2021. By February 2022, their apps surpassed 6 billion installs. The company has been criticised for cloning other games.