Mobile gaming company Playrix Holding Ltd has joined the fray by acquiring around a dozen game developers to compete with industry giants like Activision Blizzard Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc.
Billionaire brothers Igor and Dmitry Bukhman disclosed during an the interview that in six years they want their company's sales to be on equal footing with the American gaming powerhouse.
In the last 12 months, the duo have shelled out over $100 million on major buyouts and are looking to more than quadruple their inventory of games from around four that are in stock now.
While many companies around the world have invested in the online and mobile game market - from KKR & Co. to Zynga Inc - the Russian brothers are determined to face the competition.
Their Own Way
The Bukhmans revealed to Bloomberg News that while they have been communicating with the Goldman Sachs Group Inc., they wanted to make a statement of their own by expanding the company themselves.
Since April, the billionaire siblings have not been goaded into the merits of relinquishing the authority of Playrix in favor of larger cash to operate. The two prefer to make the most of their knowledge of the market to act as a consolidator and motivate budding players.
Playrix said sales from existing games, including Gardenscapes, were likely to reach $1.5 billion, as much as 30 percent more compared to the previous year. According to independent data company App Annie, it was last year's ninth-biggest publisher.
The tycoons are banking on their new titles, which will be released in the next two years, bringing revenues into the domain of competitors including Activision, which posted revenue of $7.5 billion in 2018.
Making The List
According to Igor, they are "trying to join the same league as Activision Blizzard or NetEase Inc. within five years, but in the European arena."
The investments of Playrix include studios in Poland, Bosnia, Russia, Croatia and Armenia, and the recruitment of 600 staff raised their headcount by more than 50 percent.
Investments vary from shares of 30 percent to majority interests of businesses that will continue to operate separately. These include the Cyprus-based Nexters and one of the top 10 game developers in Europe, and the Belarus-based Vizor Games.
The Bloomberg Billionaires List values the brothers at around $1.4 billion each. They landed in the ratings after creating a new variation of Match-3 Players. According to Newzoo, this year's mobile gaming market is expected to surpass $68 billion in revenue.
