Netmarble Games announced today an investment of $130 million to SGN, the fastest growing major U.S. mobile games studio. With this investment, Netmarble will become the largest shareholder in SGN. In this strategic partnership, Netmarble will use SGN’s expertise to expand their presence in the West, while SGN looks to grow their share in Asia, the biggest mobile games market in the world. Both companies will maintain their independence, but will work closely to share their creative and technological knowledge.
This is the biggest investment from an Asian based company to USA mobile games market since 2013. Asian based game companies have the biggest mobile games market in the world and for the last two years, they were making investments to the mobile game studios to reach out to the USA market. Here is a list of the biggest investments from Asian based companies to USA mobile games market: Tencent made investments of $126 million to Glu Mobile and $60 million to Pocket Gems. Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba made an investment of $120 million to Kabam and also Sega made investments to Demiurge Studious and Ignited Artists.
Founded by MySpace Co-Founders Chris DeWolfe and Aber Whitcomb, and former Fox executive Josh Yguado, SGN’s seasoned executive team has established the company as a leader in the mobile gaming industry. The studio’s catalogue of popular titles includes Panda Pop, Book of Life: Sugar Smash, the newly released Juice Jam, and Facebook’s Game of the Year 2014, Cookie Jam. SGN’s games have been downloaded over 500 million times, making them the second largest developer of Casual/Puzzle games in the world, next to King. Their games consistently land in the top grossing charts in multiple countries around the world. As the fastest growing sector of the entertainment industry, mobile games are projected to make $30 billion in 2015.
