Enthusiast Gaming Media acquires The Escapist Magazine

July 26, 2018 — Fusion DigiNet

Enthusiast GamingEnthusiast Gaming Media Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Enthusiast Gaming Inc. has acquired The Escapist Magazine from Defy Media. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 2005, Escapist is a leading online magazine focused on in-depth coverage of the video game industry in addition to movies, comics, TV, and more. Averaging over 6 million monthly visits since 2008, the acquisition significantly grows Enthusiast Gaming’s network and follows the successful acquisition of Destructoid.com in 2017, enhancing the company’s growth strategy as the fastest growing community of online gamers.

Former Editor-in-Chief of Escapist Russ Pitts will be returning to the position after leaving in 2011 to help Vox Media launch Polygon. Mr Pitts spent 5 years building and growing the online magazine and has an impressive track record with Escapist including: six Webby Awards, two Streamy nominations, a G.A.N.G. Award nomination, two dozen video series, over 1,000 written articles and a Time Magazine “50 Best Websites” mention.

Menashe Kestenbaum, Founder & CEO of Enthusiast Gaming, said, “The acquisition of Escapist is instrumental as we continue to grow our network of gamers. Escapist represents long form and intellectual content generation and will be another flagship platform in our network. Russ is a true visionary in online gaming journalism and we are thrilled to bring him back to lead Escapist.”

Canada, Toronto & USA, Durham, NC

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EA acquires Gamefly’s cloud gaming technology & talent

May 22, 2018 — Fusion DigiNet

Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts Inc. has acquired the cloud gaming technology assets and personnel of a wholly owned subsidiary of video game rental company GameFly, Inc. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Los Angeles-headquartered GameFly acquired Israel-based cloud gaming company Playcast Media Systems in 2015. The team will join EA’s functional teams, including the central technology organisation that is responsible for developing and operating the cutting-edge platform that powers EA’s leading games and services.

Cloud gaming opens up new possibilities to expand the reach of games by streaming high-quality entertainment to more players, on more devices, in more geographic regions of the world. With this acquisition, EA is adding to its strategic focus on advanced technologies that will give players more freedom to access the games they want, and enable the delivery of next-generation experiences at scale.

Ken Moss, Chief Technology Officer of Electronic Arts, said, “Cloud gaming is an exciting frontier that will help us to give even more players the ability to experience games on any device from anywhere. We’re thrilled to bring this talented team’s expertise into EA as we continue to innovate and expand the future of games and play.”

USA, Redwood City, CA & Israel, Caesarea

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Ubisoft acquires Blue Mammoth Games studio

March 2, 2018 — Fusion DigiNet

UbisoftFollowing its acquisition of 1492 Studio earlier this week, Ubisoft has acquired the video game development studio Blue Mammoth Games. With the acquisition, Ubisoft adds Brawlhalla, currently the most played fighting game on Steam, to its portfolio and bolsters its online expertise. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Blue Mammoth Games is based near Atlanta, Georgia, and is comprised of 21 talented team members, including founders Matthew Woomer and Lincoln Hamilton, who have a multiplayer online background. The studio developed and published Brawlhalla, a free-to-play online brawler that is among the top free-to-play games on PS4.

Laurent Detoc, President of Ubisoft NCSA, said, “The team at Blue Mammoth Games is expert at developing and running scalable, competitive, multiplayer online games, and they’ll be a great addition to Ubisoft’s network of studios. With Brawlhalla, we’re getting a hugely popular and highly-profitable title that aligns with our strategy of expanding our audience and providing players with long-lasting, entertaining gaming experiences.”

France, Rennes & USA, Atlanta, GA

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Scientific Games Completes Acquisition of NYX Gaming Group

January 5, 2018 — Fusion DigiNet

Scientific GamesScientific Games Corporation has completed the previously announced acquisition of NYX Gaming Group Limited. In connection with the completion of the acquisition, the NYX ordinary shares are expected to be delisted from the TSX Venture Exchange on or before the close of business on January 10, 2018.

NYX is a growing B2B real-money digital gaming and sports betting with a staff of more than 1,000 employees globally, including more than 600 engineers and has more than 200 unique customers.

NYX’s worldwide channels, markets and customer base offer new growth opportunities to build on the momentum of Scientific Games’ existing interactive gaming business. The transaction will be accretive to earnings and cash flow this year.

Kevin Sheehan, Scientific Games Chief Executive Officer and President, said, “Today, Scientific Games moves forward as a leading digital provider of sports betting, iGaming and iLottery technologies, platforms, content, products and services.”

USA, Las Vegas, NV

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Scientific Games acquires 10.72% of NYX Gaming Group

December 21, 2017 — Fusion DigiNet

Scientific GamesScientific Games Corporation has acquired ownership of 11,600,000 ordinary shares of NYX Gaming Group Limited, representing approximately 10.72% of the issued and outstanding ordinary shares of NYX. The acquired shares were purchased through the facilities of the TSX Venture Exchange at prices ranging from CAD$2.22 to CAD$2.35 per share, representing an aggregate purchase price of CAD$27,054,565. The transaction will be financed with cash on hand and debt. It represents a 112 percent premium to NYX’s closing stock price on September 19, 2017; and the transaction is expected to be accretive to earnings and cash flow in the first year and leverage neutral at closing.

NYX is a digital gaming provider with a staff of more than 1,000 employees globally, including more than 600 engineers and has more than 200 unique customers.

The award-winning NYX OGS™ (Open Gaming System), which allows licensees to leverage the best-of-breed, multi-vendor casino content from around the world, is acknowledged to be the industry’s market-leading gaming offering. From its own studios and a broad partner network of innovative third party suppliers, NYX offers customers the widest portfolio of content available, with access to more than 2,000 game titles, via OGS™.

Kevin Sheehan, Scientific Games’ President and Chief Executive Officer, said, “This important transaction creates a global gaming and lottery powerhouse. Scientific Games will be a stronger industry leader offering one of the broadest end-to-end portfolios of engaging content, innovative technologies and digital products and services across gaming and lottery”.

USA, Las Vegas, NV

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Penn National Gaming to Acquire Pinnacle Entertainment for $2.8BN

December 18, 2017 — Fusion DigiNet

Penn National GamingPenn National Gaming has entered an agreement to acquire Pinnacle Entertainment for approximately $2.8 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Pinnacle shareholders will receive $20.00 in cash and 0.42 shares of Penn National common stock for each Pinnacle share, which implies a total purchase price of $32.47 per Pinnacle share. The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies and is expected to close in the second half of 2018.

Pinnacle owns and operates 16 gaming and entertainment facilities in 11 jurisdictions across the United States. Following the acquisition of Pinnacle and the planned divestiture of four of its properties to Boyd Gaming Corporation, Penn National will have greater operational and geographic diversity and operate a combined 41 properties in 20 jurisdictions throughout North America. The transaction is expected to generate $100 million in annual run-rate cost synergies following integration and is anticipated to be immediately accretive to free cash flow in the first year.

Timothy J. Wilmott, Chief Executive Officer of Penn National Gaming, commented, “The combined company will benefit from enhanced scale, additional growth opportunities and best-in-class operations, creating a more efficient integrated gaming company. Going forward, we will have the financial and operational flexibility to further execute on our strategic objectives, while maintaining our track record of industry-leading profit margins and generating significant cash flow to reduce leverage over time.”

USA, Wyomissing, PA & Las Vegas, NV

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Yahoo! acquires gaming infrastructure start-up PlayerScale

May 30, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

YahooYahoo! has acquired gaming infrastructure start-up PlayerScale. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

PlayerScale was founded in 2009 and is based in Belmont, California. It develops infrastructure software for various gaming platforms across the social and mobile space. PlayerScale has 100 million users with 4000 titles from over 2,600 developers worldwide.

Other recent Yahoo acquisitions include Astrid, a task-management app maker;Summly, a news-condenser app maker; Stamped, a playerscalemobile-review app maker; OnTheAir, which specializes in broadcasting video chats or interviews to online audiences; Snip.it, which is a kind of clipping service for the web; Propeld, a location-based apps maker; Jybe, a social recommendation site and Loki Studios, a mobile gaming start-up.

The acquisitions are part of a strategy to broaden and strengthen Yahoo!’s expertise in the mobile segment as adoption of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets continue to accelerate.

USA, Sunnyvale, CA & Belmont, CA

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