| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer software Casual games |
| Founded | Novosibirsk (1999) |
| Headquarters | Novosibirsk, Russia |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Alexander Lyskovsky (CEO, co-founder) Sergey Zanin (co-founder) Andrey Postnikov (COO) |
| Employees | 165 (2009) |
| Divisions | Alawar Dream Dale Alawar Stargaze Alawar Friday's Games Alawar Five-BN Alawar Melesta |
| Website | www.alawar.com www.alawar.es www.alawar.pl www.alawar.ru |
Alawar Entertainment is video game developer, publisher and distributor founded in 1999. The company uses the try-before-you-buy distribution model, allowing players to sample the free trial version of a game, after which they are asked to purchase a game key online to unlock the full version. Alawar has published more than 200 casual PC games globally, including downloadable series like Farm Frenzy, Craze, PacMania and The Treasures of Montezuma. The company recently extended its offerings onto the iPhone, iPad, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS and Mac OS X gaming platforms, and in 2011 plans to enter the social games and MMO markets as well as expand onto other platforms.
Contents |
Founded by a group of friends in 1999, Alawar initially developed hard core PC games for the Russian retail market. Eventually, the market became unprofitable, with developers earning only pennies per copy of a game sold. At that time, small computer games sold online via the shareware distribution method were becoming popular, so Alawar shifted its focus to creating these kinds of titles, which would eventually come to be known as casual games. Since making this switch in 2001, Alawar has published more than 200 games.
In 2007, Finam Investment Holding, an investment firm in the Russian Federation, acquired a minority stake in Alawar. The company used the proceeds of the investment to acquire core assets (including outside development studios), create casual games and improve its content distribution technologies.
Alawar created six internal studios between 2007 and 2010 by acquiring Eastern European studios with which the company had a history of working. The first was Alawar Stargaze, which the company formed by entering into an agreement with Stargaze Interactive (the Hyperballoid series). Alawar also entered into an agreement with Dream Dale (the Smash Frenzy series) in 2007, creating Alawar DreamDale. Alawar increased its number of internal studios to four in 2008 by acquiring Five-BN (the Craze series) and Friday's Games (the Natalie Brooks series), creating Alawar Five-BN and Alawar Friday's Games. In 2009, the company entered into an agreement with Melesta (the Farm Frenzy series), creating Alawar Melesta. Casual Forge Entertainment (the Mogul series) teamed up with Alawar in 2010 to create Alawar Southpoint.
In February 2010, Alawar Entertainment announced that venture capital firm Almaz Capital Partners, general partner of Almaz Capital Russia Fund I (also known as Almaz Capital/Cisco Russia Fund I), signed an agreement with Finam Investment Holding to purchase Finam's equity stake in Alawar. Under the terms of the transaction, Almaz acquired a 23 percent stake in the company. e in Alawar Entertainment. Under the terms of the transaction, Almaz Capital Partners acquired a 23% stake in the company, which Finam acquired after several rounds of investments starting August 2007.
In addition to developing games through its internal studios, Alawar has active partnerships with about 30 external game studios, providing development, publication and distribution services (including financing, production and marketing assistance).
Alawar's best-selling games are its Farm Frenzy titles. Users have downloaded the various installments in the time management series more than 200 million times, and casual gamers have purchased more than two million Farm Frenzy games. The Farm Frenzy franchise is currently available on a variety of gaming and portable platforms, including the PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Nintendo DS, J2ME and Symbian. The series currently consists of three original games and six add-ons.
In 2010, Alawar and social game publisher and distributor i-Jet Media launched a version of Farm Frenzy for social networks on the Russian language websites Vkontakte.ru, Odnoklassniki.ru and Mail.ru, as well as the international website Netlog.
Alawar distributes its games via its network of over 20 Web sites, including www.alawar.com, www.alawar.ru, www.alawar.de, www.alawar.pl and more. The company's releases can also be found on the Web sites of numerous online portals, including RealArcade, BigFish Games, Yahoo! Games, AOL, iWIN and others. In addition, Alawar works with more than 30 CD publishers in 25 countries.
Alawar allows other casual game publishers to distribute its games through the Alawar Games Showroom Network, an affiliate program that enables other websites to offer a customized version Alawar's catalog. Content integration and distribution requires no financial expenditure on the part of the host, and partners earn a commission for each game they sell.
Once the showroom is live on a site, it's updated in one of two ways: either 1) Alawar updates the games the host offers as well as the descriptions and screenshots placed on each page of the customized catalog, or 2) the host adds a JavaScript or PHP code to its site that accesses Alawar's server and displays the HTML content placed there. Game downloads and other data are kept on Alawar's server. Alawar also offers all of its content via an XML file.
Alawar first launched AGSN on the Russian market. Today, more than 2,000 Russian Web sites are using the partnership program. The company is planning to launch the program in other countries as well.
Although based in Russia, Alawar is a global company with a presence in the U.S. and Eastern Europe. The company entered the Eastern European market in 2004 and was the first game publisher to sell casual releases to Russian-language consumers. Today, casual games from the company's portfolio are offered through more than 2,000 Russian websites, including Rambler-Games, and the RBC Company.
In addition to Russian and English, all Alawar games are also available in German, French and Spanish. In total, Alawar's games have been localized into 20 languages and can be found on Web sites and in retail game stores worldwide.