![]() | |
Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry |
Video games Apps |
Founded | 2013 |
Founders |
|
Headquarters | , France |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | |
Products |
Hole.io BeReal |
Owner |
|
Number of employees | 335 [1] (2021) |
Website | voodoo.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.
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. [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] Voodoo 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] During this time, Voodoo intended to expand and transition 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 Beach Bum in September for a reported price of $250–300 million. [20] [21] The Israeli company, the developer of video game adaptations of board and card games, had an annual revenue of $70 million at the time of acquisition. [22] In 2023, Voodoo reported $570 million in revenue, mostly from in-app purchases. Hypercasual games accounted for 25% of this revenue, of which Mob Control and Block Jam grossed over $100 million. [23]
The majority of Voodoo's games are free-to-play " hyper-casual games" developed for the Android and iOS mobile operating systems. [24] 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] [25] Voodoo games were downloaded 2 billion times by April 2019, [26] 3.7 billion downloads by May 2020, [27] and 5 billion by May 2021. [28] 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, became Voodoo's most successful game by number of downloads. [25] [29] It was the most-downloaded game of 2018 with 334 million installs, amassing more than 500 million by August 2020. [25] [30]
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]
In June 2024, Voodoo acquired the photo-sharing app BeReal for €500 million. BeReal’s main user base is in the US, France, and Japan. The app has had 50 million users since 2022. [31]
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). [32] [33] [34] 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. [32] [35] 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. [34] [36] 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. [34]
![]() | |
Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry |
Video games Apps |
Founded | 2013 |
Founders |
|
Headquarters | , France |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | |
Products |
Hole.io BeReal |
Owner |
|
Number of employees | 335 [1] (2021) |
Website | voodoo.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.
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. [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] Voodoo 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] During this time, Voodoo intended to expand and transition 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 Beach Bum in September for a reported price of $250–300 million. [20] [21] The Israeli company, the developer of video game adaptations of board and card games, had an annual revenue of $70 million at the time of acquisition. [22] In 2023, Voodoo reported $570 million in revenue, mostly from in-app purchases. Hypercasual games accounted for 25% of this revenue, of which Mob Control and Block Jam grossed over $100 million. [23]
The majority of Voodoo's games are free-to-play " hyper-casual games" developed for the Android and iOS mobile operating systems. [24] 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] [25] Voodoo games were downloaded 2 billion times by April 2019, [26] 3.7 billion downloads by May 2020, [27] and 5 billion by May 2021. [28] 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, became Voodoo's most successful game by number of downloads. [25] [29] It was the most-downloaded game of 2018 with 334 million installs, amassing more than 500 million by August 2020. [25] [30]
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]
In June 2024, Voodoo acquired the photo-sharing app BeReal for €500 million. BeReal’s main user base is in the US, France, and Japan. The app has had 50 million users since 2022. [31]
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). [32] [33] [34] 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. [32] [35] 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. [34] [36] 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. [34]