Stillfront acquired mobile game Crush Them All and the developer behind it
? Acquisition
- On June 7, 2021 Stockholm-based mobile game developer and publisher Stillfront Group acquired mobile idle RPG Crush Them All, developed by US-based mobile games developer Godzi Lab.
- In fact, Stillfront has acquired the whole Godzi Lab studio (the acquisition is structured as an all-cash acquisition of all shares in Godzi Lab Inc.), since all its assets and liabilities relate solely to the game.
- The deal is already closed with an undisclosed consideration paid fully in cash.
? Financial performance
From now on, Crush Them All will be operated by Stillfront’s subsidiary Imperia Online, which allocated more resources to the game and is expected to scale current live-ops and UA capabilities. This is by the way the same studio that previously overtook all the operations of Siege: World War II from Simutronics, and successfully integrated several other existing products into Stillfront’s ecosystem.
This would be the third (and probably the smallest) acquisition the company has announced this year: earlier, the company had acquired Moonfrog Labs ($90m), and Game Labs ($9.75m upfront). It also closed the acquisition of Super Free Games ($79m upfront), which was announced at the end of 2020.
? What’s Behind The Deal?
- Crush Them All was released in 2017 on iOS/Android, and since then has been downloaded more than 7.7m times (according to AppMagic).
- The peak of the downloads came in Dec’19, when the game saw 281k downloads. According to the press release, the game currently has 250k MAU with almost $13m bookings for the last 12 months.
- Other games developed by Godzi Lab, however, have not been received as well as Crush Them All, and currently generate less than 10k downloads a month combined.
- Quite obviously, with this deal, Stillfront continues to implement its active inorganic M&A growth strategy. After 2 major deals in Q1&2, the acquisition of a small Godzi Lab doesn’t look strange — the company is increasing its presence on the mobile market, adding another long-life cycle title in its pipeline.
- With Stillfront’s current audience and experience in expanding games, Crush Them All could become a more profitable and popular product. Furthermore, for Stillfront it’s also a win-win situation, as the company added a live product with a big space for growth. Last year, Stillfront announced 6 acquisitions; this year, we have already seen three — and have every reason to expect more M&As from the Swedish company.
Join us on Patreon to enhance your decision-making with our expertly curated data and support our project.
