Plarium to be sold for up to $850 million as Aristocrat focuses on its core assets outside of casual and mid-core mobile games

Australian gambling company Aristocrat has decided to divest one of its core assets, Plarium. The Raid Shadow Legends developer will be sold to Modern Times Group (MTG) for up to $820 million.

MTG will pay a fixed amount of $620 million to acquire Plarium, Aristocrat announced in a press release. An additional transfer of up to $200 million will be dependent on the studio’s financial performance between 2025 and 2028.

The parties plan to close the deal in the first half of 2025.

Aristocrat expects the transaction to accelerate its revenue growth and margins.

The Plarium divestment is in line with the company’s new strategy to focus on core business areas outside of casual and mid-core mobile gaming. “With the expanded Aristocrat Interactive business now sitting alongside Aristocrat Gaming and our market leading mobile social casino business, we are increasingly focused on opportunities to lean into Aristocrat’s strengths in regulated gaming content and social slots,” CEO Trevor Croker said in a statement.

As part of its strategic review, Aristocrat is also considering divesting mobile developer Big Fish Games, excluding its social casino assets. However, the final decision about the subsidiary’s future is yet to be made.

In the fiscal year ended September 30, 2024, Plarium generated around $615 million in revenue for the company’s Pixel United division. Its profit was $166 million.

According to MTG, the Plarium acquisition will “drive commercial synergies and further improve the group’s performance over the long term” thanks to the studio’s “tech and deep expertise in live-ops, marketing and monetization.”

Founded in 2009, Plarium is an Israel-based developer and publisher. Aristocrat, which acquired Plarium in 2017 for $500 million, said the studio managed to diversify and strengthen its gaming portfolio during the pandemic.

Plarium is best known for its mobile hits Raid: Shadow Legends and Vikings: War of Clans. In FY23 alone, these titles generated $408 million and $51 million in bookings, respectively. According to AppMagic, Raid: Shadow Legends has surpassed $1.2 billion in lifetime net revenue (reduced by platform fees and inclusive taxes).