King acquired Nonstop Games for $32 million

The candy company announced that it is going to engage in hardcore games. The first step in this direction was the purchase of Singapore Nonstop Games for $ 32 million. The studio is known for having developed the Heroes of Honor strategy, a lightweight and colorful version of Traviana.How much?

King paid $6 million in cash for Nonstop Games.

She will pay another $84 million depending on future performance, $16 million of which is guaranteed to go to management next year if they do not leave the studio. Outside of these agreements, King also paid key studio employees $10 million, securing them for Nonstop Games until the end of 2015. So it turns out that the purchase of the authors of Heroes of Honor flew in at least $ 32 million.

Whom?One of the main noteworthy facts about Nonstop Games is that the studio was founded by the brother of the founder of Supercell, Juha Paananen.

The studio’s first and so far only project was released in January of this year. The performance of the game over the past three months is clearly not $ 32 million.

The game has the best performance in its native region – Singapore. But, as you can see just below, they jump a lot (here and further – iPhone, overall).

Heroes of Honor dynamics in Singapore’s Box office Top (iPhone, Overall)Things are not very stable in Europe either.

If, for example, we look at the cash positions of the game in Europe and France, then we see a similar situation here. There is no stable inflow.

Dynamics of Heroes of Honor in the box office top of France (FR) and Germany (DE) (iPhone, Overall)In the USA, the game does not earn enough even to get into the box office Top 1500.

Heroes of Honor dynamics in the US box office top (iPhone, Overall)But if you look at the dynamics in the heat top, there is some stability there.

Just below you can see the dynamics of the position in the box office top role-playing games in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Singapore and Spain.

The dynamics of Heroes of Honor in the box office top role-playing games of France (FR), Germany (DE), Singapore (SG), Russia (RU), Italy (IT) and Spain (ES) (iPhone, Overall)And why?

 King understands that for decades the company will not be able to make money on “three-in-a-row”.

Moreover, her most successful title is not the young Candy Crush Saga. Now the creators of the “Saga” need to go further, to insure themselves against possible failures in the casual segment.

A new market, new users – just what she needs.

Another question is whether Nonstop Games is a good source for further investment. It is clear that King was largely guided by the experience of Kabam, which, after receiving the second round of investments, began to quickly absorb small studios specializing in hardcore titles. But it is necessary to understand that Kabam bought studios related in spirit, which then, as it seems to us, “taught to work in their own way” in an already familiar field.

Buying a hardcore studio by King is good for a studio that was promised up to $100 million, won’t the scenario of Zynga, which failed to moderate its appetites, then repeat?

King, a company that started in the segment of casual and flash games for PC, thanks to the success of the Saga series projects on Facebook and mobile platforms, has turned into one of the most successful global game studios with a DAU of more than 90 million in a couple of years.Nonstop Games, formerly also known as GamesMadeMe, is an experimental studio.

Previously, they worked on the creation of HTML5 games within its walls. Based in Singapore. Founded by Finns. Henric Suuronen, one of the founders of the studio, previously headed Wooga and Digital Chocolate Finland. Executive Director Juha Paananen previously developed Nokia’s business in the Asia-Pacific region.