Here’s some pretty interesting news, and something I would have never seen coming. Hasbro, the iconic company who have been making toys and board games for nearly 100 years, has just bought a majority stake in Backflip Studios, a prominent iOS developer most widely known for their success with DragonVale (Free).
The Wall Street Journal reports that for a cool $112 million in cash Hasbro bought a 70% stake in Backflip. The Boulder, Colorado-based company will continue to operate from their existing location and with the existing management team, and they will also continue to create their own IP as well as games using the many, many well known brands from Hasbro. It sounds like things will remain business as usual for Backflip with the acquisition, with Hasbro simultaneously getting a gigantic, instant foothold in the mobile gaming space.
Besides DragonVale, Backflip is also well known for the Ragdoll Blaster series, the Paper Toss series, Ninjump and Army of Darkness Defense, among others. Just a few of the heavy hitter brands from Hasbro include Monopoly, Transformers, Play-Doh, My Little Pony, Nerf, and tons more. Interestingly, some of those properties have already been turned into games by the likes of EA and Gameloft, so it will be interesting to see how all that shakes out. At any rate I’ll be looking forward to the fruits of this new Hasbro / Backflip relationship going forward into the future.
[WSJ via Backflip’s blog]
