YoYo Games is a Scottish

software development Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

company based in

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

, Scotland. From February 2015 to January 2021, the company was owned by

Playtech Playtech plc is a gambling software development company founded in 1999. The company provides software for online casinos, online poker rooms, online bingo games, online sports betting, scratch games, mobile gaming, live dealer games and fixe ...

; afterwards, it was sold to

Opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

to launch its new gaming division.

History

YoYo Games was founded in 2007 by Michel Cassius, Sandy Duncan, Spencer Hyman and James North-Hearn, former

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and Interest (emotion), interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but it is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have deve ...

and

video game industry The video game industry is the tertiary industry, tertiary and quaternary industry, quaternary sectors of the entertainment industry that specialize in the video game development, development, marketing, distribution (marketing), distribution, ...

executives. Duncan was appointed

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of the company. On 26 January 2007,

Mark Overmars Markus Hendrik "Mark" Overmars (; born 29 September 1958) is a Dutch computer scientist and teacher of game programming known for his game development application GameMaker. GameMaker allows users to create computer games using a drag-and-drop ...

announced his partnership with a company based in

, Scotland, called YoYo Games. The company established its European office in

in May 2010 by opening an office within

Abertay University Abertay University () is a public university in the city of Dundee, Scotland. In 1872, Sir David Baxter, 1st Baronet of Kilmaron, left a bequest for the establishment of a mechanics' institute in Dundee and the Dundee Institute of Technology w ...

with two team members. The company currently employs more than 25 employees. YoYo Games has announced plans to create an additional 25 positions, over the next 18 months, in systems development, software engineering, sales and customer service. The employees will be hired to help the company keep pace with the rapid evolution of the global games market and demand for Game Maker: Studio. To accommodate this expansion, in June 2013, YoYo Games moved from its old location within Abertay University into new office space on

’s Waterfront redevelopment. On 16 February 2015 it was announced that

acquired YoYo Games for £10.65 million (USD$16.4 million). Shortly thereafter, Duncan stepped down from his position. He was later replaced by James Cox as

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

, who himself stepped down in October 2018 to be replaced by Stuart Poole in January 2019. Playtech sold YoYo Games to Opera for in January 2021. Opera announced with YoYo's acquisition, it was launching a new Opera Gaming division alongside their browser software. In February 2021, Stuart Poole left the role of General Manager and Russell Kay was named Senior Product Director (Head of GameMaker)

References

External links

* {{Opera Software AS Video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game development companies British companies established in 2007 Video game companies established in 2007 2007 establishments in Scotland Companies based in Dundee 2015 mergers and acquisitions 2021 mergers and acquisitions Opera Software British subsidiaries of foreign companies