Megapopular mobile strategy game Clash of Clans isn’t just making money for its developer, Supercell. It also just helped Puzzle & Dragons studio GungHo Online Entertainment generate a significant profit.
GungHo just sold its stake in Supercell for $344 million, according to consultant Serkan Toto of Kantan Games. SoftBank, GungHo’s parent company, purchased the Puzzle & Dragons maker’s ownership in Supercell. This gives SoftBank, which already owned a significant portion of Supercell, control of 51 percent of the studio. This deal also gives GungHo a $38 million profit on its initial investment in the Clash of Clans company. Following SoftBank’s purchase, Supercell is now valued at $3.4 billion.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1533080,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"C"}']In October, SoftBank teamed up with the Puzzle & Dragons maker in October to purchase a 51 percent stake in Supercell for $1.53 billion. SoftBank paid for 80 percent of that while GungHo put in $306 million to pay for the other 20 percent.
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“Following the purchase, Supercell [is now] a subsidiary of SoftBank in Finland,” wrote Toto in a blog post. “The Puzzle & Dragon maker says the motivation for the sale is to focus more on emerging markets and Asia going forward.”
Over the last year, GungHo and Supercell used their close relationship to cross-promote their respective gamers. Puzzle & Dragons would regularly introduced Clash of Clans characters and themed levels to encourage fans of one game to check out the other.
Puzzle & Dragons and Clash of Clans are both still among the top-grossing games on iOS and Android.
As part of its efforts to expand in Asia, GungHo recently established a subsidiary in Singapore. GungHo Online Entertainment Asia Pacific, as the company calls the new spinoff, will invest heavily into games that could perform well in the lucrative Asian markets. The company says it has $300 million available for its Singapore office to spend as it sees fit, and it’s likely that some of that money will come from GungHo’s Supercell sale.