Huuuge, a maker of social casino games that recently went public in Poland, has acquired the free-to-play match-3 game Traffic Puzzle from Picadilla Games for $38.9 million.
Picadilla Games is based in Wrocław, Poland. The acquisition marks the first significant milestone for the company’s growth and acquisition strategy since it raised $445 million in February on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The deal takes Huuuge beyond social casino and into the casual games market, where it already has a number of titles.
Huuuge is already the publisher of Traffic Puzzle, and now it will own the game. CEO Anton Gauffin said in a statement that the puzzler has grown quickly and is now the company’s third-largest game. The puzzle category in which Traffic Puzzle competes accounts for over half of the $10.6 billion casual game market (according to analyst firm Eilers & Krejcik), and Huuuge’s increased activity there is important to its strategic goals, Gauffin said.
Gauffin said the company will be able to accelerate the growth of Traffic Puzzle with its free-to-play know-how.
Huuuge’s lineup includes social casino games such as Huuuge Casino, Billionaire Casino, Stars Slots, and Huuuge Bingo Saga. Its casual games under the Coffee Break Games label include Traffic Puzzle, Transport it, Trolls Pop, and Luna’s Quest Bubble Shooter. Games in the early stages of development include Arena, Rogue Land, Arrows & Empires, and Solitaire TriPeaks: Adventure Journey.
The company said it ranks among the top 10 companies in the multibillion-dollar social casino gaming market. It has more than 600 employees in 10 offices.
Traffic Puzzle’s daily active user (DAU) count doubled in 2020 relative to 2019, and its revenues tripled in the same period. The average daily revenue of Traffic Puzzle grew from approximately $12,900 daily in September 2020 to approximately $100,000 a day at the time of signing.
In the game, the player attempts to clear a blocked road by matching three cars of the same color. The game launched in May 2019, and is available on the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore platforms.