Supplier News
US – Caesars ruling the social roost
By Phil - 8 July 2013
Caesars Interactive Entertainment is now the number one name in social gaming, overtaking Zynga as the largest publisher of games in a sector that is now worth $1.2bn worldwide.
Eilers Research published its findings that now pitch Caesars’ hold over the market at 18.6 per cent, switching places with Zynga who now has a 15 per cent market share. IGT meanwhile, owner of the Double Down brand, is now in third place with 15 per cent of the sector with WMS Interactive in fourth with 14 per cent.
Eilers predicts that the overall market will increase by 67 per cent this year to be worth $2bn by the end of the 2013.
The key to Caesars’ new found dominance of the market has been a series of high profile acquisitions.
It bought Israel’s Playtika in 2011, along with popular social gaming brands such as Slotomania, Slotomania Adventures and Bingo Blitz which came as a result of Caesars buying Buffalo Studios.
In June of this year, Caesars bought the rights to the World Series of Poker mobile app, which boasts 6m downloads.
The app, which was previously owned by Electronic Arts, is available for download on Facebook, Amazon Kindle, Androi, and all IOS devices. Playtika is responsible for all of Caesars Interactive’s social and mobile games assets.
Zynga previously ruled the market with Zynga Poker, which it has expanded to include titles Zynga Slingo, Zynga Slots and Zynga Bingo. It recently bought Spooky Cool Labs.
Revenues from social casino games on Facebook have actually slipped by two per cent in the last quarter to $309m. Zynga’s double-digit drop for Zynga Poker on both Facebook and mobile platforms was perhaps the biggest surprise. Big Fish Games was the largest standalone social casino app on mobile with an estimated $14.5m in quarterly revenues.
