Jam City, based in Culver City California, has made its largest acquisition thus far by acquiring “Jurassic” game maker, Ludia for $165 million
The Ludia assets were purchased from TV production company Fremante.
Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and CEO of Jam said the deal will help the company expand into augmented reality games and help push it into the red-hot non-fungible token (NFT) market.
DeWolfe said of Ludia, “They have some unique technology that got us really excited… We’ve known them for three or four years and admired their games.”
DeWolfe went on, “We have dry powder for organic investments into new genres and technologies, and more M&A… We’re definitely leaning in there (AR), and also leaning more into the NFT world, which pairs well with gaming. NFTs, we’re going to be making some potential investments there.”
It took about 10 months of negotiations before the deal was struck, as Jam City was considering going public.
The gaming industry remains one of the hottest investment sectors, globally. With well over $60 billion in investment and M&A already this year, the industry is on track to register over $100 billion in deals.
Smaller developers and publishers with unique, user-friendly technology stand to be big beneficiaries of the deal flow. The next big wave of M&A may come as big publishers and developers acquire startups with patented technology that allows for real-world, in-game commerce.
The comingling of gaming and eCommerce could generate over $1 trillion in revenue, meaning enormous profits could come for developers who utilize such technology. Augmented reality and virtual reality games may be among the best utilized, most profitable areas for in-game commerce, as virtual shopping becomes mainstream.
Learn more about the Jam City deal, HERE
Or learn more about in-game commerce, HERE