News

Deca Games plays F2P’s long tail, buying 4 one-time hits from GREE

Including Knights and Dragons and Crime City

Date Type Companies involved Size
October 17th, 2019 acquisition DECA Games
GREE
Not disclosed
Deca Games plays F2P’s long tail, buying 4 one-time hits from GREE

Live Ops specialist Deca Games has boosted its portfolio with the acquisition of four games from Japanese publisher GREE.

 The titles are

  • Knights and Dragons,
  • Crime City,
  • Modern War, and
  • Kingdom Age

Released duing the first wave of F2P mobile games from 2011, between them, they've accumulated over 100 million downloads and at various times have been top grossing games.

The size of the deal wasn’t revealed.

What could have been

Back in 2013, Knights and Dragons was generating $5 million a month.

However, GREE failed to make the most of its opportunity, and like fellow Japanese publisher DeNA, has long retreated from western markets.

As for Berlin-based Deca Games, it was set up by ex-Kabam exec Ken Go, and currently operates PC game Realm of the Mad God (ex-Kabam) and mobile indie hit Zombie Catchers (ex-Two Men and a Dog).

“With this acquisition, we are making a big commitment to the passionate fans of these games,” commented Go.

Knights and Dragons was a hit for GREE back in the day

“We’ve staffed a full development team behind the titles because we believe they have a long life ahead of them and we can deliver an even higher quality of service.

“We are scaling our operations to bring our unique brand of live operations to more games and partners.”

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.