GGRAsia – Aristocrat announces new studios to expand digital footprint

Aristocrat announces new studios to expand digital footprint

Aug 23, 2021 Newsdesk iGaming, Latest News, Trends & Tech

Casino slot machine supplier Aristocrat Leisure Ltd is adding three new content development studios to its digital arm, said the company on Friday. The new studios – Futureplay, Northern Stars and Playsoft – are all based in Europe.

The Australia-listed firm said the deals would help it further expand its digital game development capability, in line with the group’s growth strategy.

“The investments are strongly aligned to targeted genres, particularly the high-growth casual and merge segments where Aristocrat Digital already has a presence, and the social casino segment, in which the business has a market-leading position globally,” the firm stated in a press release.

Aristocrat Digital is the digital, social free-to-play games business of Aristocrat. Aristocrat Digital has some 2,300 employees globally in over 14 locations.

Aristocrat Digital’s chief executive, Michael Lang, said the deals were consistent with Aristocrat’s goal of “bringing more world-class game development talent and capability into the organisation to expand our game pipeline and sustain our strong growth momentum in digital.”

Aristocrat agreed to acquire Finland-based free-to-play mobile gaming studio Futureplay. Founded in 2015, Futureplay “has released six games that have been played by over 140 million users around the world,” said Aristocrat. The acquisition price was not disclosed in the release.

Titles by Futureplay include ‘Merge Gardens’, ‘Idle Farming Empire’ and ‘Battlelands Royale’.

Futureplay will operate under the leadership of Jami Laes, as a studio reporting within Aristocrat Digital’s Plarium business, said the Australian company.

Aristocrat said it had also established a further Finland-based studio, Northern Stars. It will focus on the emerging hybrid casual genre under game development and studio leaders Minwoo Lee and Antti Nikander.

Aristocrat said it also had acquired Playsoft, a Poland-based mobile gaming studio specialising in the social casino genre. The company did not disclose details of the deal in Friday’s release.

According to the release, Playsoft has developed more than “50 successful game titles” for third party partners since it was established some 13 years ago.

Playsoft will operate within the Product Madness business line of Aristocrat Digital. It will continue to be led by founders Nicolas Bensignor and Pierre Olivier Monteil.