Voodoo SAS
TypePrivate
IndustryVideo games
Founded2013 (2013)
Founders
  • Alexandre Yazdi
  • Laurent Ritter
Headquarters
Paris
,
France
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
  • Alexandre Yazdi (CEO)
  • Gabriel Rivaud (VP, games)
ProductsHole.io
Owner
Number of employees
335[1] (2021)
Websitevoodoo.io

Voodoo SAS (also referred to as Voodoo.io) is a French video game developer and publisher based in Paris. The company was founded in 2013 by Alexandre Yazdi and Laurent Ritter. Voodoo's games, predominantly free-to-play "hyper-casual games", have been collectively downloaded 5 billion times as of May 2021. By February 2022, their apps surpassed 6 billion installs.[2] The company has been criticised for cloning other games.

History

Voodoo was founded in 2013 by Alexandre Yazdi and Laurent Ritter.[3] They had been friends since high school and had previously founded Studio Cadet in 2012, a services company for websites and mobile applications.[4] Yazdi became the chief executive officer of Voodoo, while Gabriel Rivaud acted as the vice-president of games.[5] According to Rivaud, the company was in turmoil for its first four years in operation and opted to change its business strategy thereafter.[5] Using data it gathered from its previous games, the company designed its newer games to attract more players.[5] Using the Unity game engine, Voodoo tested one new game roughly every week. This method resulted in the successful release of Paper.io in 2016.[6]

Through 2017, Voodoo quadrupled its staff count to 80 and expected to grow to 150 people by the end of 2018.[3] In May 2018, the American banking company Goldman Sachs, through its West Street Capital Partners VII fund, invested US$200 million in Voodoo.[3] It was the largest fundraising in the French technology sector since 2015.[3] Yazdi and Ritter retained control of the company.[3] At the time, Voodoo had, aside from its Paris headquarters, offices in Montpellier and Strasbourg.[3] A development studio in Berlin, Germany, was established in December 2018, headed by general manager Alexander Willink.[7] The studio started out with roughly ten people, looking to eventually expand to 40 employees.[7] It later hired key employees from developers Blizzard Entertainment, King, and Mamau.[8]

By September 2019, Voodoo employed 220 people, including 150 at its Paris headquarters.[6] A publishing office in Istanbul, Turkey, was announced in August 2019 and is headed by publishing director Corentin Selz.[9] This continued with the opening of a Montreal development studio in November 2019, led by Mehdi El Moussali, a former producer for Gameloft.[10] Through this new location, Voodoo intended to expand beyond hyper-casual games.[10] The company acquired Shoreditch-based developer Gumbug in December that year.[11]

By July 2020, Tencent was looking to acquire a minority stake in Voodoo, which was still majority-owned by Yazdi and Ritter.[12] Tencent acquired a minority stake to undisclosed terms in August that year. At this time, Voodoo was valued at $1.4 billion.[13] According to Yazdi, this deal would help Voodoo to extend their games into the Asia-Pacific market.[14] Voodoo subsequently opened offices in Singapore and Japan later that month, headed by Julian Corbett and Ben Fox, respectively.[15] In total in 2020, Voodoo saw revenues of €380 million, up from €1 million in 2016.[6] The company announced an investment in Istanbul-based developer Fabrika Games in September 2020,[16] and acquired Parisian developer OHM Games in December. OHM Games had developed four games for Voodoo in 2020, which together generated 260 million downloads.[17] Voodoo further bought BidShake, a Tel Aviv company developing a marketing automation platform, in June 2021.[18] Groupe Bruxelles Lambert acquired a 16% stake in Voodoo for €266 million in August 2021, valuing Voodoo at €1.7 billion.[19] Voodoo acquired the Israeli studio Beach Bum in September for a reported price of $250–300 million.[20][21]

Games

The majority of Voodoo's games are free-to-play "hyper-casual games" developed for the Android and iOS mobile operating systems.[22] Games released by the company include Helix Jump, Baseball Boy, Snake vs Block, Hole.io, Aquapark.io, Purple Diver, Crowd City, and Paper.io.[11][23] Voodoo games were downloaded 2 billion times by April 2019,[24] 3.7 billion downloads by May 2020,[25] and 5 billion by May 2021.[26] In December 2019, Voodoo games had 2.6 billion downloads, 300 million monthly active users (MAUs), and 1 billion individual players.[11] Helix Jump, developed by H8games, is Voodoo's most successful game with more than 500 million downloads as of August 2020.[23][27]

External developers can submit games through an online platform for Voodoo to evaluate. The publisher has worked with over 2,000 such studios, which account for 75% of Voodoo's releases. The company finances select studios and supports them during the prototyping phase, receiving a royalty share in return.[6] Outside of games, Voodoo developed the social media platform Wizz in 2020. As of August 2021, the platform has 1 million MAUs in the United States.[6]

Criticism

Voodoo has been criticised for releasing apparent clones of indie games. These include Infinite Golf (similar to Desert Golfing), Twisty Road (Impossible Road), The Fish Master (Ridiculous Fishing), Flappy Dunk! (Flappy Bird), Rolly Vortex (Rolling Sky), The Cube (Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube?), and Hole.io (Donut County).[28][29][30] In the case of Hole.io, the game used the core gameplay mechanic of Donut County that has the player controls a hole in the ground to consume objects within the environment, progressively growing wider to be able to consume larger objects.[28][31] Ben Esposito had been working on Donut County for more than five years when Hole.io released in mid-2018, before Donut County's publication.[30][32] In response to an inquiry from Variety, Voodoo stated that Hole.io was not a clone of Donut County, although both were in the same sub-genre of games. Variety's Michael Futter noted that these games were the only two in this genre.[30]

Accolades

  • #20 on Pocket Gamer.biz's "Top 50 Mobile Game Developers of 2018"[33]
  • #5 on Pocket Gamer.biz's "Top 50 Mobile Game Makers of 2019"[34]
  • #16 on Pocket Gamer.biz's "Top 50 Mobile Game Makers of 2020"[35]
  • Best Publisher – Mobile Games Awards 2019[36]
  • Revelation of the Year – BFM Awards 2019[37]
  • Part of Next40 2021[38]

References

  1. ↑ ""Don't always assume that you need expensive and professional training to enter the industry"". Pocket Gamer.biz. 18 April 2021. Archived from the original on 29 April 2021. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  2. ↑ Astle, Aaron; Writer, Staff. "Voodoo surpasses 6 billion downloads across games and apps". pocketgamer.biz. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Dèbes, Florian (28 May 2018). "Levée de fonds record pour la PME française du jeu vidéo Voodoo" [Record raising of funds for the French video game SME Voodoo]. Les Echos Start (in French). Archived from the original on 28 August 2019. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  4. ↑ Colas des Francs, Ophélie (3 September 2014). "Quiz Run lève 280.000€ en crowdequity" [Quiz Run raises 280,000 € in crowdequity]. Les Echos Entrepreneurs (in French). Archived from the original on 26 August 2019. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  5. 1 2 3 Takahashi, Dean (29 May 2018). "Voodoo raises estimated $200 million from Goldman Sachs for mobile games". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on 20 August 2019. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Bregeras, Guillaume (1 September 2019). "Exclusif: Voodoo, la pépite française du gaming, enflamme son chiffre d'affaires" [Exclusive: Voodoo, the French gold nugget of gaming, ignites its turnover]. Les Echos Entrepreneurs (in French). Archived from the original on 13 April 2021. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
  7. 1 2 Valentine, Rebekah (12 December 2018). "The search for creativity at Voodoo's new Berlin studio". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on 26 August 2019. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  8. ↑ Forde, Matthew (2 July 2019). "Voodoo brings on Blizzard, King and Mamau hires for Berlin studio". Pocket Gamer.biz. Archived from the original on 3 July 2019. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  9. ↑ Forde, Matthew (1 August 2019). "Interview: Hyper-casual specialist Voodoo opens new Istanbul studio". Pocket Gamer.biz. Archived from the original on 5 August 2019. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  10. 1 2 Batchelor, James (13 November 2019). "Voodoo opens Montreal studio as it expands beyond hypercasual games". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on 13 November 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  11. 1 2 3 Takahashi, Dean (11 December 2019). "Voodoo acquires mobile game studio Gumbug in London as it exploits hypercasual growth". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on 11 December 2019. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
  12. ↑ Betz, Brandy (14 July 2020). "Tencent eyes stake in game developer Voodoo – Bloomberg". Seeking Alpha. Archived from the original on 15 July 2020. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  13. ↑ Liao, Rita (17 August 2020). "Tencent takes minority stake in French casual games maker Voodoo". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 17 August 2020. Retrieved 17 August 2020.
  14. ↑ McAloon, Alissa (18 August 2020). "Tencent picks up minority stake in hyper casual game publisher Voodoo". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on 19 August 2020. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  15. ↑ Valentine, Rebekah (26 August 2020). "Voodoo opens Singapore, Japan offices". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on 26 August 2020. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
  16. ↑ Partleton, Kayleigh (4 September 2020). "Voodoo invests in Istanbul-based developer studio Fabrika Games". Pocket Gamer.biz. Archived from the original on 16 January 2021. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  17. ↑ Partleton, Kayleigh (21 December 2020). "Voodoo acquires Paris-based studio OHM Games". Pocket Gamer.biz. Archived from the original on 21 December 2020. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  18. ↑ Partis, Danielle (11 June 2021). "Voodoo acquires marketing automation platform Bidshake". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on 16 June 2021. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
  19. ↑ Taylor, Dan (2 August 2021). "GBL acquires minority stake in mobile games unicorn Voodoo at €266 million". Tech.eu. Archived from the original on 27 September 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  20. ↑ Partis, Danielle (1 October 2021). "Voodoo acquires mobile studio Beach Bum". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on 1 October 2021. Retrieved 2 October 2021.
  21. ↑ Morland, Sarah (30 September 2021). "French mobile gaming unicorn Voodoo buys Israeli studio Beach Bum". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2 October 2021. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  22. ↑ McAloon, Alissa (29 May 2018). "Mobile dev Voodoo secures an estimated $200M investment from Goldman Sachs". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on 26 August 2019. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  23. 1 2 Bradshaw, Tim (7 August 2020). "How 'hyper-casual' games are winning the mobile market". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 13 January 2021. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  24. ↑ Chapple, Craig (9 April 2019). "Voodoo racks up two billion mobile game downloads". Pocket Gamer.biz. Archived from the original on 16 April 2019. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  25. ↑ "The Voodoo Approach: How the world's biggest hyper-casual publisher makes its hit games". Pocket Gamer.biz. 20 May 2020. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  26. ↑ Biswas, Tousif (7 May 2021). "Voodoo crossed five billion downloads". Pocket Gamer.biz. Archived from the original on 13 May 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  27. ↑ "Voodoo Development Magic: How H8 Games launched Helix Jump, one of the hottest games of 2018". Pocket Gamer.biz. 22 October 2018. Archived from the original on 30 October 2021. Retrieved 2 November 2021.
  28. 1 2 D'Anastasio, Cecilia (25 June 2018). "Indie Games Are Getting Cloned Before They're Even Out". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 26 August 2019. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  29. ↑ Valentine, Rebekah (26 June 2018). "Donut County developer speaks out on frustration of app store clones". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on 26 August 2019. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  30. 1 2 3 Futter, Michael (6 July 2018). "Goldman Sachs-Backed Cloner Uses War Chest, Ad Buys to Overshadow Original Games". Variety. Archived from the original on 16 July 2019. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  31. ↑ Radulovic, Petrana (6 July 2018). "Donut County lookalike is number one on the App Store". Polygon. Archived from the original on 26 August 2019. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  32. ↑ Conditt, Jessica (11 July 2018). "Mobile-gaming titans keep ripping off indies". Engadget. Archived from the original on 9 September 2018. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  33. ↑ "Top 50 Mobile Game Developers of 2018 – #20: Voodoo". Pocket Gamer.biz. 21 August 2018. Archived from the original on 27 September 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  34. ↑ "The Top 50 Mobile Game Makers of 2019 – #5: Voodoo". Pocket Gamer.biz. 1 October 2019. Archived from the original on 27 September 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  35. ↑ "The Top 50 Mobile Game Makers of 2020 – #16: Voodoo". Pocket Gamer.biz. 8 September 2020. Archived from the original on 26 February 2021. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  36. ↑ "The winners of 2019". Mobile Games Awards. Archived from the original on 27 January 2020. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  37. ↑ BFM Awards 2019 : la pépite du jeu vidéo Voodoo reçoit le prix de la révélation de l'année [BFM Awards 2019: video game nugget Voodoo receives revelation of the year award] (in French). BFM TV. 7 November 2019. Archived from the original on 26 October 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  38. ↑ Bembaron, Elsa (9 February 2021). "Next 40 et French Tech 120 : la liste complète des entreprises" [Next 40 and French Tech 120: the complete list of companies]. Le Figaro (in French). Archived from the original on 27 July 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
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