Today, Zynga announced it is furthering its commitment to Social Casino games with the acquisition of Rising Tide Games. Rising Tide Games was founded by gaming industry veterans Maytal Olsha, Stuart Zoble, Andrew Sega and Peter Franco all of whom are joining Zynga and have deep expertise in Social Casino game development, particularly Social Slots games.
“I am excited for Rising Tide Games to join forces with Zynga,” said Maytal Olsha, founder and co-CEO of Rising Tide Games. “I look forward to once again partnering with Mark, the talented Spooky Cool team and the Zynga Austin Studio to create authentic and truly social free-to-play games. Together, with our amazing Rising Tide Games family, I believe we can deliver fun, unique Social Slots experiences to players around the world in the growing Social Casino gaming space.”
Rising Tide Games was founded with a focus on developing engaging, free-to-play social games that leverage high fidelity graphics, iconic pop culture brands, VIP player affinity programs and data science to create authentic, personalized consumer experiences. Since its launch, the company has developed the Social Slots game, Black Diamond Casino, which is currently being tested in geo-lock.
“As a data driven development team, we value Zynga’s commitment to world-class data and analytics to create the best player experiences,” said Stuart Zoble, founder and co-CEO of Rising Tide Games. “By marrying our focus on data science and high quality, player-centric game design, with Zynga’s heritage in Social Casino games like Zynga Poker and now Hit It Rich! Slots and Wizard of Oz Slots, we believe we can deliver the most engaging and rewarding free-to-play Slots games available across multiple platforms and devices.”
Since its acquisition of Spooky Cool Labs in 2013, the team behind Hit It Rich! Slots, Zynga has been committed to expanding its footprint in the growing Social Casino category. By nurturing its world-class teams and launching new Slots products that delight players such as Wizard of Oz Slots, Zynga grew its Social Slots franchise bookings by 274% between Q2 2014 and Q2 2015 and 32% sequentially in Q2 2015. Zynga expects this commitment to continue, as it plans to deliver more authentic Slots games to players with the launch of a new mobile Slots game later this year.
“We are excited to welcome the deeply talented Rising Tide Games team to Zynga, as we continue to expand our Social Casino game offerings,” said Mark Pincus, CEO and Chairman, Zynga. “Zynga has a long history in the Social Casino space, as Zynga Poker is the original social game and remains the world’s largest free poker game. We look forward to our Poker and Slots teams continuing to deliver games that delight our players.”
Rising Tide Games has offices in Austin, Texas and New York and its investors include Raine Ventures and Entrée Capital. The company’s board of directors also includes Gordon Rubenstein. The details of the transaction were not disclosed.
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