Gamigo

Gamigo AG
legal form	Corporation
founding	2000
Seat	Hamburg , Germany
management	Remco Westermann ( CEO ); Jens Knauber ( COO ); Gary Coffey ( CTO ); Paul Echt ( CFO ); Stefan Rascher ( CSO );
Number of employees	342 (annual average 2018)
sales	45.2 million euros (2018)
Branch	Browser games and MMOG publishers and distributors
Website	https://corporate.gamigo.com/ueber-gamigo/#company

The gamigo AG : (own spelling gamigo is a German) publisher for browser games , mobile games and massively multiplayer online games and provider of software-as-a-service solutions in the field of cloud computing . The company is headquartered in Hamburg, with other German locations in Berlin, Münster, Darmstadt and Cologne. In addition to the five German locations, Gamigo AG also has branches in Warsaw (Poland), Seoul (South Korea), Istanbul (Turkey), New York, Redwood City, Austin and Chicago (USA). Gamigo AG is constantly expanding its own game portfolio by acquiring companies in the IT and gaming industry and by acquiring game licenses and publication rights.

history

In 2000, Gamigo was founded by the brothers Holger, Ralf and Rolf Klöppel and Lars Koschin in Rheine as an online magazine for PC and console games and was financed a short time later by the financial investors BMP and AS Ventures. In addition to setting up one of the largest German-language online game magazines at the time, the company also concentrated on renting game servers for various 3D shooters such as Counterstrike. In the field of game server rental under its own brand Gamigostrike, Gamigo was one of the first providers to be significantly involved in the development of the market and was at times the market leader in Germany. In May 2001, Gamigo bought the license rights to the game Die 4. Revelation from today's email security service Vircom and published the first online role-playing game localized in German. Other games followed, which were offered in German: Anarchy Online (May 2002), Tactical Commanders (June 2003) and Puzzle Piraten (May 2004).

In 2003 the founder Holger Klöppel died. Ralf Klöppel left the company in 2005, Rolf Klöppel and Lars Koschin in 2007.

In 2008 the games Last Chaos and Fiesta Online were released. Gamigo expanded into other European countries and launched the French and Spanish versions of Shot Online and Last Chaos . In the same year, Axel Springer AG acquired all of BMP AG's shares in Gamigo. In 2009, Gamigo became a 100 percent subsidiary of Axel Springer AG. Last Chaos was also playable in Polish and was the publisher's first game to reach over a million registered players in Europe.

In 2010, Gamigo published Cultures Online, the first self-produced game that was developed by the German development team Funatics . At the end of 2010, the company also acquired shares in the German developer studio Reakktor Media . The online action game Black Prophecy was jointly developed and operated. In 2011, Gamigo acquired a 20.1% stake in Fiesta Online's Korean developer studio, OnsOn Soft.

In July 2012, it was announced that Gamigo had been hacked and that over 8 million email addresses with hashed passwords had been made public. Gamigo reset the passwords, informed users and asked them to set new passwords.

In October 2012, Axel Springer AG sold all shares in Gamigo AG to the strategic investor Samarion. On June 28, 2013, Gamigo announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Gamigo Advertising GmbH had bought the online community gulli.com .

On December 7, 2013, Gamigo AG acquired the North American license for the Last Chaos portfolio product from Aeria Games.

In 2015, Gamigo AG acquired Looki Publishing, GameSpree and the Berlin online games publisher Infernum Games. The company is thus expanding its portfolio to include the titles Desert Operations, Kings and Legends and Dragons Prophet. In addition, Gamigo took over the mobile payment specialist Mobile Business Engine and the games marketer Poged.

In May 2016, Gamigo announced that it had acquired the publisher Aeria Games from ProSiebenSat.1. With this, the company expanded its portfolio u. a. the games Aura Kingdom, Twin Saga, S4 League, Wolf Team, Ironsight, Grand Fantasia and Eden Eternal as well as Echo of Soul. In addition, the license rights were acquired from Fiesta Online.

In July 2017, Gamigo took over 100 percent of the shares in Mediakraft Networks GmbH. The multichannel network supervised u. a. well-known Youtube personalities like "LeFloid," Die Lochis "and the" Space Frogs ".

In October 2018, the Gamigo group acquired a majority of the assets from the American game developer and publisher Trion Worlds Inc. a. the company's own platform and the assets of the games Trove, Rift, Defiance 2050, Atlas Reactor and the publishing rights to the Korean MMORPG ArcheAge.

In February 2019, the Gamigo group placed a corporate bond on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and NASDAQ Stockholm for an initial amount of EUR 32 million with an additional option to top up to EUR 50 million.

In April 2019, Gamigo Inc. acquired the US game publisher WildTangent Inc. in the form of an asset deal. Gamigo Inc. is based near Seattle in Bellevue, WA 98004, USA.

In January 2020, Gamigo AG acquired the major assets of Verve Wireless Inc., a North American mobile data platform for location-based programmatic video and display marketing.

Business model

Initially, Gamigo offered online role-playing games with a monthly subscription . Over the years, however, it became clear that only very large productions with appropriate marketing and PR support could achieve sufficient subscriber numbers to be able to survive in the long term. The management uses the potential of so-called free-to-play games from Asia, which are offered for downloading free of charge and without monthly fees. Instead, virtual items can be purchased for real money, which increase comfort in the game or save time. For example, “boosters” that grant a bonus to experience points or the currency in the game are very popular. Mounts, special clothing or pets are also popular with players.

Gamigo also offers B2B services for third-party providers and relies on a combination of organic growth and acquisitions of game title, media and technology companies to expand the Gamigo core portfolio.

Awards

Black Prophecy - Massively's Best of E3 2010 ( Biggest Surprise category)
Jagged Alliance Online - German Developer Award Best Browser Game 2012

Games

Browser-based games:

Jagged Alliance Online
Pirate Galaxy
Taern - blood. Death. Retribution.
The rats
Kings and Legends
Was 2 glory
Desert Operations
Wargame 1942
Generals of War

Client-based games:

Trove
ArcheAge
ArcheAge: Unchained
Defiance 2050
Rift
Champions of Regnum
Fiesta Online
Golf star
King of Kings 3
Last chaos
Loong: Power of the Dragon
Loong Dragonblood DE
Aura Kingdom
Echo of Soul
Grand Fantasia
Ironsight
Shaiya
S4 League
Champions of Regnum **

discontinued or unpublished games:

Anarchy Online
Black Prophecy
Bloody Bite *
Brick Force
Cultures Online
The 4th revelation **
Dreamlords
Dungeon Empires
Elements of War Online *
Generals of War
Goal United **
Grimlands *
Heroes in the Sky **
Level R
Magic Campus
Martial Empires
Soul Master **
UFO Online *

Myth *
Navy Field
NeoSteam
Nexus Conflict
Patrician Online *
Puzzle pirates
Romadoria
Savage Hunt
Shot Online **
Slapshot Underground
Smash Online
Tactical Commanders
The Witcher: Versus
War of Angels *

* Game was announced but never released or never left beta.
** The license of the game was not renewed, since then it has been operated by a different company.