Hasbro made a cash payment of US$112 million to acquire a 70% stake in Backflip Studios. Backflip Studios was a mobile game maker based in Boulder, Colorado. The company was behind Paper Toss, NinJump, and Dragonvale.
Although the company has seen around 300 million downloads, it was spending more on marketing. This reduced Backflip's profit margins, said Hasbro in a statement.
With this new deal, Backflip would continue in the games business with their own games as well as games using Hasbro's brands. The toy maker owns brands such as Transformers, Monopoly, Magic: The Gathering, and My Little Pony.
This was not the first time that the Backflip would be making games outside their intellectual property though. The company has previously released Army of Darkness Defense.
The mobile game company begun in 2009 without any outside funding. Their first games included Paper Toss, a super-simple game involving flipping, a wad of paper, and a trash can. Later on, Backflip went into tower defense games and then casual simulation games, such as Dragonvale.
Join the Conversation