Aristocrat acquires Israeli social gaming firm

The Australian land and online gambling technology developer Aristrocrat has announced that it has acquired Israeli social gaming developer Plarium Global Limited for $500 million cash.

Founded in 2009, the social gaming developer is headquartered in Israel, but has international offices and employs some 1,200 people. It boasts nine key titles that are currently generating revenues, and a strong game pipeline.

Plarium titles include the popular Vikings: War of Clans, which has repeatedly ranked in the top 10 grossing strategy games since its launch.

The Aristocrat statement reveals that Plarium CEO and co-founder Avraham Shalel will continue to lead Plarium after the acquisition. Shalel and 12 other key Plarium managers have agreed to stay with the company and to defer part of the payments due them until 2020.

Shalel said, “The hard work and efforts of Plarium’s employees have positioned Plarium as a world class mobile game publisher. Aristocrat is an ideal partner for us given our common aspiration to be a global leader in social gaming, which will be accelerated through leveraging Aristocrat’s financial, strategic and operational resources.”

Aristocrat CEO and managing director Trevor Croker added, “The acquisition of Plarium allows Aristocrat to expand our addressable market into logical adjacent segments in the fast growing mobile social gaming market. This immediately expands our addressable market from US$3.2 billion in the Social Casino segment, to US$25.4 billion when including the Strategy, Casual and RPG segments. It also provides us a stronger platform to target the US$43.6 billion overall mobile and web games market as growth segments.”

The deal is due to be completed before the end of the year.