Huuuge Games on a roll

The publication GameBeat has flagged up-and-coming social casino developer Huuuge Games as a company to watch in the sector, pointing out that since launch in 2015 the California, Germany and Poland-based firm has burgeoned into a successful enterprise employing over 150 people despite competition from the likes of Playtika, Scientific Games, Aristocrat, Zynga, and IGT.

At launch the company had $4 million dollars from a fund-raising led by Korea Investment Partners.

The Huuuge social casino offers slot machines, baccarat, roulette, or blackjack, encourages social interaction and runs tournaments. It currently has over 500,000 users with a reportedly high average revenue per daily active user.

In the fourth quarter, Huuuge had an estimated $18.9 million in revenues, up 894 percent from a year earlier, making it the fastest-growing company in the sector, according to independent analyst reports.

And it has the No. 1 social casino game in downloads and the No. 4 in top-grossing on Android, whilst moving up the charts on iOS.

CEO and founder Anton Gauffin told GameBeat that Huuuge is profitable and is about to hire an additional 90 people to cope with demand for its products.

“It wasn’t easy. At the time we did our soft launch, we almost went bankrupt,” Gauffin revealed to GameBeat. “We were forced to launch our game, and it was a close call. We didn’t imagine things would go so well.”

He said that his company found an opening with real-time multiplayer for its social casino game, Huuuge Casino, which offered more ways than rivals for players to spend and earn virtual money. The company also embarked on an aggressive marketing campaign that continues, and includes television commercials like:

Gauffin has been involved in gaming since 2002, starting in Finland and moving to the United States in 2007. He is confident that the social casino market, which is predicted to grow to $4 billion by 2020, is the right place to be.

“In the long term, I think real-time multiplayer is going to give us a real advantage,” he said.