Peak Games, the fastest‐growing emerging markets games company in the world, has acquired Saudi social games giant Kammelna Games, marking a step forward to further cement the company’s leadership in two of the world’s largest emerging markets, Turkey and Middle East North Africa (MENA). The Kammelna deal represents a massive opportunity to build upon Peak’s culturally relevant games portfolio and become the de facto leader in the MENA region with strong executive leadership, local talent, a new studio and hugely popular games.
“Peak Games is capitalizing on a growing market opportunity in Turkey and MENA, and has been able to successfully exploit its first mover advantage and deliver culturally relevant games, vaulting it to the #4 position on the list of the world’s largest social games companies,” said Michael Pachter, Managing Director Equity Research of Wedbush Securities. “The company’s strategy is paying off, as the region has one of the highest levels of user engagement and ARPU in the world.”
Peak Games Delivers on Promise of Culturally Relevant and Regionally Focused Games
Core to the company strategy, Peak Games reaches underserved markets with localized and culturally-specific games that employ strong engagement and monetization strategies. The new acquisition brings the popular middle eastern card game Baloot into Peak’s growing lineup of top performing multiplayer synchronous game titles, which include Okey, Okey Plus, 101 Plus and published titles such as Happy Farm ( المزرعة السعيدة). Peak’s focus with the Kammelna acquisition will be to provide Baloot on new platforms, including Facebook and mobile, and launch new titles across multiple platforms. The company will continue to launch more Arabic card, board and table-top games through the new studio.
Kammelna Games: a Pillar of the MENA Social Games Market
With Peak’s massively popular, Arabic-language Happy Farm game already topping charts with 2.2m DAU, the addition of Kammelna’s top-performing Baloot only strengthens Peak’s reach. Happy Farm is the second most popular social farm game in the world, is a top 15 Facebook game globally, and has more than a third of Farmville’s numbers even as an Arabic-only property. The collection of Kammelna’s games support and fulfill Peak’s promise to offer the most culturally relevant games across the MENA region.
MENA web and technology luminary and Kammelna founder Essam Alzamel will run Peak Games’ new studio in Damman, KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). Adding to its office in Amman, Jordan, Kammelna takes Peak’s footprint into Saudi Arabia, extending beyond other Gulf coast countries on the Arabian Peninsula, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
“We have added Kammelna to the Peak Games family because of their profound understanding of MENA players and their focus on creating culturally relevant, multiplayer social games – where Peak already has an expertise with millions of users,” said Sidar Sahin, chief executive officer and founder of Peak Games.
MENA Games Market Growth: The Power of Saudi Arabia
MENA growth is projected to reach 400M players by 2015 and has a highly engaged social gaming community. In Saudi Arabia specifically, more than two-thirds of Internet users play games online, one of the highest engagement rates globally. Currently, the Saudi Arabian region has one of the highest average revenue per user (ARPU) in social gaming around the world. Kammelna users alone average more than one hour in playtime.
Peak Games Already Top 4 Globally, On a Mission to Grow
With its emerging markets approach and highly profitable portfolio of games, Peak Games ranks among the top 4 social games companies in the world. Peak’s audience has been growing rapidly, topping 20M monthly active users (MAU) and 7M daily active users (DAU), after a 25 percent increase in less than 4 months. Peak’s games are played in 5 time zones, 4 continents and 5 languages.
Other hot titles in Peak’s catalog include card‐based Okey, which is by far Turkey’s most popular online social game with more than 3.6M MAU. Umaykut is a social strategy game based on the story of three Turkic clans bringing the core players of the region to the Facebook platform. The company is focusing on creating similar social core titles with its previous acquisitions of Umaykut & Erlikhan Studios.
About Peak Games
Peak Games (http://www.peakgames.net/) is the largest and fastest‐growing gaming company focusing on emerging markets including Turkey and MENA. With more than 20 million active players drawn from one of the world’s fastest growing gaming markets, Peak Games already ranks among the top 5 largest social gaming companies globally. A key to Peak Games’ success is unrivaled expertise in creating and publishing games that fit the unique interests and cultures of emerging markets. The company is funded by venture capital firms Earlybird Venture Capital, Hummingbird Ventures, a strategic, regional investor and serial business angel Evren Ucok. Peak Games has offices and game studios in Istanbul, Ankara, Amman, Barcelona, Damman, Berlin and San Francisco.
