DUNDEE, Scotland and
OSLO, Norway, Jan. 20, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Opera (NASDAQ:
OPRA), the browser developer and consumer internet brand, today
announced its acquisition of YoYo Games, creator of the
world's leading 2D game engine, GameMaker Studio 2, for
approximately $10 million. The
tuck-in acquisition represents the second building block in the
foundation of Opera Gaming, a new division within Opera with global
ambitions and follows the creation and rapid growth of
Opera's innovative Opera GX browser, the world's first browser
built specifically for gamers.
Krystian Kolondra, EVP Browsers
at Opera, said: "With Opera GX, Opera had adapted its proven,
innovative browser tech platform to dramatically expand its
footprint in gaming. We're at the brink of a shift, when more and
more people start not only playing, but also creating and
publishing games. GameMaker Studio2 is best-in-class game
development software, and lowers the barrier to entry for anyone to
start making their games and offer them across a wide range of
web-supported platforms, from PCs, to, mobile iOS/Android devices,
to consoles."
Annette De Freitas, Head of
Business Development & Strategic Partnerships, Opera Gaming,
added: "Gaming is a growth area for Opera and the acquisition
of YoYo Games reflects significant, sustained momentum across both
of our businesses over the past year. Our new Opera GX browser hit
7 million MAUs in December, 2020, up 350% year over year,
while YoYo Games' GameMaker engine
achieved 400K new registered creators
in 2020. We're tremendously excited by the opportunities the
combination creates not only for our combined users, but also for
the expansion of Opera's gaming community."
Stuart Poole, GM at YoYo Games
who will remain with the business alongside technical lead
Russell Kay, stated, "For over
twenty years, the vision behind the GameMaker engine was to not
just create more games, but expand development within and beyond
the game studio. We think the transaction with Opera - whose
products are known, trusted and used worldwide by millions of
people every month- represents a massive opportunity to accelerate
fulfilment of that founding vision, during a period of exceptional
growth for both companies."
"We are very excited to start working with the team at YoYo
Games," said Krystian Kolondra, EVP
Browsers at Opera. "We see the Game Maker Studio platform as being
an ideal acquisition to complement our global ambitions in gaming,
and to help drive awareness and traffic to our Opera GX gaming
browser."
Opera GX, YoYo Games and GameMaker will unite under Opera
Gaming, focusing on innovating across the gaming, game development,
and browser experience. "We look forward to further growing Opera
GX and driving the growth of GameMaker as part of a broader
ecosystem, making it more accessible to novice users and developing
it into the world's leading 2D game engine used by commercial
studios," continued Krystian
Kolondra. "Opera Gaming will be focusing on accelerating the
growth of this emerging ecosystem, combining the 7+ million highly
engaged gamers using Opera GX with millions of GameMaker
creators. We are also thrilled to continue realizing synergies
between YoYo Games' products and
Opera GX."
GameMakerStudio is an integrated game development software,
performance-tuned 2/2.5D engine that fuels many games, including
multi-million hits like Risk of Rain, Undertale, or Hyper Light
Drifter on an extensive range of mainstream platforms. Starting to
build games with Game Maker Studio requires little to zero coding
skills. Due to its extensive functionalities and ease of use Game
Maker Studio lowers the barriers to entry and empowers a variety of
creative people to make their games come alive and share them with
the world.
Kolondra explained further: "Performance is essential to
even 2D gaming, and sustaining that performance across mobile
devices and laptops as well as variable bandwidth and connectivity
requires thinking outside of traditional application silos. The
line between building good games and good browsers has been eroding
for years - with gaming interactivity across internet connections
ramping up and browsers growing more multi-function and
sophisticated. Traditionally the two types of technology compete
for hardware and bandwidth resources. But as Opera GX proved, there
was a better way to address that competition and improve the
experience across both functionalities. YoYo Games' team, development expertise and
studio relationships lay the groundwork for turning the Opera GX
vertical into a new kind of horizontal. This horizontal opportunity
is why we're building Opera Gaming and its infrastructure - so that
we can further integrate gaming and browsing in ways beneficial to
both in terms of not only monetization, but also experience."
About Opera and Opera GX
Opera is a global web innovator. Opera's browsers, news products
and fintech solutions are the trusted choice of more than 380
million people worldwide. Opera's PC browser has surpassed
80 M MAUs. Opera is headquartered in
Oslo, Norway and listed on the
NASDAQ stock exchange (OPRA). https://opera.com
In 2019 Opera launched Opera GX, a browser built for gamers
with features that include countless customization options,
sound effects, background music, a gaming-inspired design, as well
as CPU, RAM and Network Bandwidth limiters that make the browser
less resource-hungry and leave more of the computer's resources for
gaming. Opera GX has seen tremendous growth over the past year with
a user base of more than 7 million highly engaged monthly active
gamers. Opera GX's user base grew 350% between 2019 and
December 2020 and it continues to
grow at a fast pace. Opera GX continues to receive high ratings
(4.84 out of 5.0). It also recently launched Discord server
which quickly became number one in the Science & Tech community
with more than 240K members.
About YoYo Games
YoYo Games is the home of GameMaker, the fastest and friendliest
cross-platform game development technology out there. GameMaker
Studio 2 has been completely redeveloped with usability and
efficiency at its core, allowing developers to create games within
a single code base and then publish them to run natively across
multiple platforms including Android, iOS, HTML5, PS4, Xbox One,
Nintendo Switch, Windows Desktop, OS X, Ubuntu, Windows UWP.
The GameMaker Studio family of products has been downloaded more
than 10 million times since 2012. YoYo Games is based in
Dundee, Scotland.
www.yoyogames.com
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SOURCE Opera Limited