Opera has announced it has acquired YoYo Games, the company behind GameMaker.
GamerMaker Studio combines drag-and-drop elements with a scripting language to to help novice programmers create games with minimal programming. While the acquisition may seem out of place for a company long-known for its web browser, the acquisition aligns with Opera’s recent moves.
The company announced its new Opera GX web browser in June 2019. Unlike its legacy browser, Opera GX was aimed at gamers from the beginning. Still in early access, the browser provides ways to limit its network use to save bandwidth for whatever games are running, as well as quick ways to kill RAM-hogging tabs. The browser also includes built-in Discord support. Discord is a popular communication platform gamers use when playing multi-player and PvP games.
“We are very excited to start working with the team at YoYo Games,” said Krystian Kolondra, EVP Browsers at Opera. “We see the platform as being an ideal acquisition to complement our global ambitions in gaming, along with our Opera GX gaming browser. We look forward to further growing Opera GX and to driving the growth of GameMaker, making it more accessible to novice users and developing it into the world’s leading 2D game engine used by commercial studios. We are also thrilled to find future synergies between YoYo Games’ products and Opera GX.”
“It’s been clear to us from the first time we spoke to them that the whole of the team at Opera is incredibly passionate about games,” said Stuart Poole, General Manager of YoYo Games. “Since joining them last week, the positivity and creative energy we are seeing from them has been overwhelming. We have always had big plans for improving GameMaker across all platforms, both from the perspective of improving accessibility and further developing the features available to commercial studios; and now we can’t wait to see them arrive much sooner.”
Opera’s acquisition illustrates the ongoing digital convergence among industries that, at first glance, appear to have little in common.