Social gamers Zynga have dug deep into investors’ pockets to add yet another rival developer’s hit titles to its own ‘forever franchises.’
On Monday, Zynga announced that it had paid the staggering sum of $1.8b for Istanbul-based gaming developers Peak, makers of hit match-3 puzzle games Toon Blast and Toy Blast. The deal calls for half that sum to be paid in cash, the rest in Zynga common stock, with the deal expected to close in the third quarter of 2020.
Zynga and Peak were already on familiar terms, as Zynga paid $100m in 2017 for Peak’s mobile card games business, which included such titles as Spades Plus and Gin Rummy Plus, as well as some other titles popular with local Turks.
This time, Zynga is getting the whole Peak shebang, including a 100-person development studio in Istanbul, along with new Peak titles in various stages of development. Zynga claims the add-on will boost its mobile daily active users by over 60% and will prove to be “an additional driver of margin expansion over the coming years.”