Opera acquires YoYo Games for $ 10 million and launches Opera Gaming division

Web browser maker Opera acquired YoYo Games, maker of the GameMaker Studio 2 game engine, for $ 10 million, and it also launched its Opera Gaming division.

The deal highlights Opera’s efforts to differentiate its web browser, Opera GX, through a community of gamers. Opera itself has over 380 million people using its web browsers around the world. Its new Opera GX gaming browser had seven million monthly active users in December, up 350% from the previous year.

Opera Gaming will focus on expanding Opera’s capabilities and in-game monetization opportunities, Krystian Kolondra said in an interview with GamesBeat. Opera, publicly traded, is based in Oslo, Norway, while YoYo Games is based in Dundee, Scotland.

“A few years ago, we made the decision to produce innovation and not have to compete with the mass market of browsers,” Kolondra said. She is the Executive Vice President of Navigators for Opera. “We are focusing on certain segments that are really growing and that are significant. So we decided to tackle the game. ”

GameMaker Studio 2 has found its niche as a 2D game creation tool, and it’s used by people who have very little training in skills like programming. Kolondra said the technology had reached a point where people were just as interested in making their own games as they were in playing them. Opera also has a built-in cryptocurrency wallet.

YoYo Games had over 400,000 new registered users in 2020.

“It lowers the barrier to entry for anyone starting to make their bets,” Kolondra said.

Games can run on a wide range of web-supported platforms including PCs, iOS / Android mobile devices, and consoles.

YoYo Games Managing Director Stuart Poole will remain with the company alongside CTO Russell Kay. YoYo Games has been working on the GameMaker engine for years, and it has been downloaded over 10 million times since 2012.

Opera launched the Opera GX game browser in 2019. It offers customization options, sound effects, background music, game-inspired design, as well as CPU, memory and network bandwidth limiters. which make the browser less resource intensive.

Some of the big hits made with GameMaker include Risk of Rain, Undertale, and Hyper Light Drifter. These games have sold millions of copies. Kolondra said the company does not plan to create any exclusive games that only work with the Opera GX browser, as the goal is to build a community around Opera GX users, but also to make GameMaker Pro 2 available to those who want to create cross-platform games.

Kolondra said that good browser performance is essential even for 2D games, and to maintain that performance on mobile devices and laptops, as well as variable bandwidth and connectivity, you have to think outside the silos. traditional applications. The line between creating good games and good browsers has been eroding for years – with gaming interactivity across internet connections increasing and browsers becoming more multifunctional and sophisticated, he said. .

Opera GX has received great reviews from gamers who don’t want to sacrifice performance just by having a web browser running, Kolondra said. He has over a million ratings to date.

“To us the game is more like a community now,” said Kolondra. “This will accelerate our growth because it will be a very unique value proposition. GameMaker Studio makes it easy for users to create games. “