Opera Buys Game Maker Founder YoYo Games for $10 Million

Looks like their gamble didnt pay off. Playtech has sold YoYo Games, the company behind the GameMaker game engine, to Opera for $10 million.

Originally reported by Reuters with Playtechs financial results, there was an implication that they had gotten rid of YoYo Games. The only statement made at the time was that the company got rid of all its casual and social gaming assets.

Confused as to what that meant, various GameMaker forum users did some digging and learned that YoYo Games recently hired on a variety of Opera employees into senior positions. They also changed their correspondence address to the same as Operas headquarters in Norway. Rock Paper Shotgun later confirmed the trade with documentation from Companies House.

Only now, with a statement by YoYo Games to Gamesindustry.biz, has the information been formally confirmed. They explained that they are the basis for a new gaming division at Opera.

The head executives at YoYo Games will stay where they are. Stuart Poole, YoYo Games' general manager, explained that this new acquisition aligns with the companys existing mindset toward expanding beyond just a game studio.

For over twenty years, the vision behind the GameMaker engine was to not just create more games, but expand development within and beyond the game studio. We think the transaction with Opera represents a massive opportunity to accelerate fulfillment of that founding vision, during a period of exceptional growth for both companies.

This all follows a difficult few years for YoYo Games and the GameMaker Studio engine. YoYo has reported increasing levels of loss in the last three financial years. And as other development platforms commit to expanding 2D game development (Unity, Godot, etc), Game Maker Studio is finding itself with more competition.

How this might affect the development of the Game Maker Studio 2, their current game engine, is unclear. As a long time fan of the engine, having made a handful of projects using it, I am admittedly concerned that this will lead to a shift in priorities that might sully the software for me. Though in reality, its too soon to tell.