Wooga

Wooga GmbH

Type	Private
Industry	Video games, Social Network Service, Mobile games, Games development, Social Games, Facebook games
Founded	2009
Headquarters	Berlin, Germany
Key people	Jens Begemann Philipp Moeser
Website	http://www.wooga.com/

Wooga is a mobile-first game developer located in Berlin, Germany.^[1][2] The company develops free-to-play mobile and social games for mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets and social networks like Facebook. It is the world's 5th biggest game developer (by monthly active users) on the Facebook platform as of March 2014.^[3]

The Wooga offices in Berlin, Germany.

At GDC 2014, CEO, Jens Begemann presented the company’s new development approach, which he calls the “hit filter”. The focus of this new approach is to create 2 hits per year.^[4]

Company Structure

Wooga’s company structure is non-traditional. Game development is decentralized, and dealt with by autonomous teams working under separate studios within the company. Business functions, such as HR, PR, and marketing are dealt with centrally.^[5]

History

• Wooga was founded in January 2009 by Jens Begemann (CEO), Patrick Paulisch (Co-founder) and Philipp Moeser (CTO).^[6] Patrick Paulisch has since left Wooga.^[7]

• In July 2009, Wooga launched its first game, Brain Buddies. The game reached 5 million monthly players 3 months after launch.^[8]

• The company received €5 million in a round of funding led by Balderton Capital in November 2009.^[9] Holtzbrinck Ventures, which had provided funding earlier that year, also participated in this round.^[10]

• In February 2010, Wooga launched its second game, Bubble Island, which reached 4 million monthly players in 8 weeks.

• In May 2010, Wooga launched its third game, Monster World^[11]

• In November 2010, Wooga launched Happy Hospital.^[12]

• In March 2011, Wooga launched Diamond Dash. Wooga raised a Series B Round of $24 m funding in May 2011.^[13]

• Magic Land was launched during the GDC Europe in August 2011 in Cologne. In December 2011 Wooga presented Diamond Dash for iPhone and iPad in Paris and consequently announced its global launch on the iOS App Store. In March 2012, Wooga announced that Diamond Dash had been downloaded over 11 million times since launch.^[14]

• In March 2013 Wooga launched both Monster World mobile for iOS and Pearl’s Peril. Pearl’s Peril became the company’s fastest selling game. ^[15]
• In April 2013 Wooga launched Pocket Village.

• In May 2013, Wooga launched Fantastic Forest and Kingsbridge.^[12] In February 2014 Fantastic Forest was relaunched as Farm Tales.

• In August 2013 Jelly Splash launched on iOS.^[16] The game was subsequently released on the Facebook.com platform in September 2013, and on Android in October 2013.^[17] Wooga also launched Jelly Splash as a test title for the Korean KakaoTalk platform in November 2013.^[18]

• In December 2013, Jelly Splash reported Monthly Active Users of 8.2 million.^[19]

Figures

According to Metrics Monk, in February 2014 Wooga has a total of ca. 35 million monthly active users and 7.7 million daily active users on the Facebook platform.^[20]

As of 24 February 2014, Wooga was the 43rd highest grossing app developer on the Apple iTunes Store,^[21] and 78th highest grossing on the Google Play platform,^[21] according to App Annie.

Facebook Games

• Diamond Dash (15.5 million monthly active users and 2.4 million daily active users) ^[20]
• Bubble Island (3.3 million monthly active users and 0.5 million daily active users)^[20]
• Monster World (3.0 million monthly active users and 0.7 million daily active users)^[20]
• Magic Land (0.3 million monthly active users and 61k daily active users)^[20]
• Happy Hospital (0.1 million monthly active users and 7k daily active users)^[20]
• Brain Buddies (0.2 million monthly active users and 9k daily active users)^[20]
• Kingsbridge (0.3 million monthly active users and 36k daily active users)^[20]
• Farm Tales (0.7 million monthly active users and 89k daily active users)^[20]
• Pearl’s Peril (4 million monthly active users and 1.4 million daily active users)^[20]
• Jelly Splash (8.4 million monthly active users and 2.1 million daily active users)^[20]

^[22]

References

External links

• Official Wooga website