GDEV, a public game company once known as Nexters, has increased its stake in the game studio Royal Ark to 57% on the success of Royal Ark‘s Idle Zombie Miner.
By exercising a previously negotiated conversion option, GDEV has been able to deepen its strategic partnership initiated in 2022, further reinforcing GDEV’s approach to empowering creative studios without compromising their autonomy, the company said.
The GDEV and Royal Ark teams made a joint decision to create a new product and turn that vision into reality through Royal Ark‘s execution. This partnership culminated in the launch of Idle Zombie Miner, which was soft-launched in early 2024 and, within just eighteen months, accumulated over 17 million installs.
It also reached the No. 1 position among games of its genre (clicker/idle games), according
to market analyst AppMagic. Preliminary unaudited results indicate that Zombie Miner generated approximately $23 million in revenue in the first half of 2025.
For a new IP, especially during a global industry slowdown and genre shift, this is a major success and a significant achievement within the gaming industry, the company said.
Zombie Miner represents an innovative reimagining of idle gaming, where players become true CEOs of their own gold-mining empires, leading an endearing army of zombie workers with personality and charm.
Royal Ark’s CEO Leonid Sirotin said in a statement, “I’m incredibly proud of my team and grateful to our partners. Together, we made the success of Zombie Miner possible. I’d like to give special thanks to Royal Ark’s game director Andrey Garbuzov and lead producer Evgeny Serpokrylov, as well as to Andrey Fadeev, CEO of GDEV, and Anton Reinhold,
CEO of Nexters.”
He added, “And of course, a heartfelt thank you to our players – everything we do at Royal Ark is for you, and we’ll keep working hard to deliver even more.”
Idle Zombie Miner is free-to-play, and available to play now on Android and iOS.
GDEV began its life as Nexters, based in Moscow, Russia, in 2014. The company established an outside office in Limassol, Cyprus in 2016. It saw rapid growth from 2019 onward thanks to Hero Wars and other games that have since generated 550 million in stalls and $2.7 billion in bookings to date. The firm went public in 2021 and spent $100 million on acquisitions of studios.
But the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 forced changes. Nexters moved its headquarters to Limassol and moved its developers to other countries as well. Some accused it of not being distant enough but the firm has said it has severed Russian ties, including parting from investor Ivan Tavrin, a prominent Russian businessman and founder of Kismet Group.
In 2023, Nexters renamed its holding company GDEV, and GDEV is now the parent company that oversees subsidiaries including Nexters, Cubic Games, Royal Ark and Game Gears. GDEV now has 850 people.
Royal Ark Studio was founded by Sirotin in 2018 and it launched Dawn of Zombies. It partnered with GDEV in 2022 and opened offices in Cyprus and Armenia. It started work on Zombie Miner in 2023 and it now has 110 employees.
As for the game, the average daily session length is 110 minutes, a high engagement rate for the genre. It has social mechanics for gifting with friends and co-op events as well as competitive systems, lives ops, relics and meditative and friendly gameplay. It was built with 70 people and has done best in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Canada.
To date, the game has generated $39 million in revenues. Asked what made it a success, the company said it included the desire to create a non-frustrating experience, a “safe space” for players to relax and interact with their “little guys.” It was also a conscious pivot from survival to casual, experimenting in a completely different genre. It focused on micromechanics and satisfying tactile control, making every screen interaction enjoyable. And it had extensive use of AI tools and strong marketing work contributed to rapid growth and scalability.