<![CDATA[EN.AIN.UA retest]]> en-US Tue, 19 Mar 2019 10:15:12 +0200 <![CDATA[American Blackstone acquires Ukrainian developer of social casino games Murka]]> https://staging.en.ain.ua/2024/05/10/blackstone-acquires-murka/ blackstone-acquires-murka Tue, 19 Mar 2019 10:15:12 +0200 News American multinational private equity, alternative asset management, and financial services firm The Blackstone Group LP is preparing to acquire a Ukrainian-American developer and publisher of online games and social casinos Murka Ltd and Murka Entertainment Ltd. The Blackstone Group informed about their intention the Commission for the Protection of Competition of the Republic of Cyprus on March 8, 2019. According to the source of AIN.UA, the deal has already been confirmed. Murka has not yet commented on this.

Murka

Murka was established in 2011 and is known for such social casino brands as Slots Journey, Slots Journey 2, TX Poker, S&H Casino, Vegas Slots, Royal Fortune Slots, Bubbla Cadabra, Scatter Slots and others.

The key feature of the social casino genre is its legality – one cannot convert their winnings into real currency. Such games are available in mobile app stores and on Facebook. The publisher of social casino games profits from in-game content and/or on ad impressions. According to various sources in 2018 publishers on the global market of social casino games raised somewhere between $3.2 billion to $3.46 billion only from mobile platforms.

Terms of the deal

The notice of Blackstone Group says that a shell company Tribe Cyprus Bidco Ltd will be established to support the deal.

Presently, Kyiv, Dnipro, and Lviv offices of Murka employ over 100 employees. The terms of the upcoming deal have not yet been commented on by the company. One of the principal investors of the company is an international asset management firm Noosphere founded by Max Polyakov.

Previously we informed about the acquisition of an Israeli developer and publisher of social casino games with offices in Ukraine Playtika by a Chinese consortium for $4.4 billion.

]]> <![CDATA[Rating of the largest game development companies in Ukraine: Plarium and Gameloft are ahead]]> https://staging.en.ain.ua/2024/05/10/rating-of-the-largest-game-development-companies-in-ukraine/ rating-of-the-largest-game-development-companies-in-ukraine Tue, 11 Dec 2018 18:29:04 +0200 News According to the study, the total audience of games that Ukrainians are working on is more than 770 million users. The largest audience was gathered by large companies like Plarium, Ubisoft and Wargaming. 84% of game development companies work on games for mobile platforms, most often for iOS and Android.

More than 50% of companies create or plan to create games for VR/AR devices. According to the study, Unity remains the most popular game development platform (69%). The most popular genres in Ukrainian game development are Action (40%) and Adventure (42%).

Not all companies, on the basis of which Ukraine’s game development map was compiled, took part in the survey. There were 72 participants in the first edition. The next update of this study is planned to be published in the summer of 2019.

The graphic map of Ukrainian game development, showing the largest market participants, looks like this (click to enlarge):

Rating of game development companies in Ukraine basing on the size of the staff looks like this (we included the first 50 positions, all in all 97 positions):

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