Dublin-headquartered Keywords Studios has announced its latest expansion into Japan through the acquisition of games development firm Wizcorp.
Global games services company Keywords Studios is continuing to snap up firms like there’s no tomorrow. According to The Irish Times, the latest firm to come under its wing is the Japanese games development company Wizcorp for almost €1m.
Based in Tokyo, Wizcorp is an outfit of 35 employees developing games for the mobile sector and it has partnered with major games publishers including Square Enix and Bandai Namco. Still a relative newcomer having been founded in 2008, the company has annual earnings of approximately 310m yen, or almost €2.5m.
Dublin-headquartered Keywords Studios has big plans for its new asset, believing it will give it a major presence in the region’s games development market. The global company maintains a large presence in Japan, with 300 employees based in Tokyo.
In 2018 it announced the acquisition of Yokozuna Data from Silicon Studio Corporation, a Japanese developer of video games and middleware, for $1.5m. Now, this latest acquisition becomes Keywords Studios’ second asset purchase from the French entertainment giant Ankama.
“Japan is one of the world’s most significant game development hubs and has a long history in this industry,” said Christopher Kennedy, regional managing director for Keywords Studios in Asia.
“Keywords is excited at the opportunities Wizcorp will bring the group and its clients in the Japanese market as it becomes the latest member of our global engineering service line.”
He added: “Wizcorp’s HTML5 expertise is a valuable extension to our console, mobile and PC games development skills, which is particularly interesting in the context of Snap’s recent launch of its HTML5-based gaming platform.”
Prior to this announcement, the company revealed in February that it had snapped up Dutch-based GetSocial, a cloud-based social media management platform for game developers. GetSocial’s clients include mobile game companies such as Ubisoft Mobile Games, Sega, Truly Social Games and Kolibri Games.