About this app
What is Blessed Flame?
Lower barriers to entry could significantly widen the pool of potential game creators. Curwen sees opportunities not only for established and emerging studios, but for operators, suppliers, entrepreneurs and potentially entirely new entrants.
“The big change is that technology can increasingly provide the infrastructure,” he says. “The creator provides the idea. And I think that will make the industry much more interesting.”
For Yggdrasil, Game in a Box and Studio in a Box are therefore intended to become more than tools for its own development operation. Curwen envisages them supporting a wider creator ecosystem, although he acknowledges that proving the model commercially must come first.
About Blessed Flame
Skillz has challenged Papaya Gaming’s Chapter 15 petition in Delaware bankruptcy court, arguing the Israeli mobile game developer lacks standing because its operations and primary creditor base are anchored almost exclusively in the United States.
In April, a federal jury sided with Skillz (now operating as Firy Inc.) on its claims that Papaya deceived consumers by utilizing computer bots in its head-to-head mobile games.
Three months later, Judge Denise Cote ordered Papaya to pay Skillz $719 million in damages for poaching players from its skill gaming platform on the belief that Papaya had more players and therefore facilitated considerably faster peer-to-peer pairing times.
About Blessed Flame
“So this is not an either/or. It is a B2C acquisition that we expect to strengthen our B2B pipeline on the continent.”
GiG exited the B2C space in 2023 when, after a strategic review, the company split its media and platform divisions, the former of which was rebranded as Gentoo Media.
The 888Africa acquisition announcement raises questions about why GiG have opted to return to the B2C sphere. Richards warns against over-analysing the deal as a wholesale return to B2C, insisting that GiG remains a B2B platform and tech business at its core.