Dutch game company Azerion has teamed up with Japan’s Sanrio in a three-year partnership to make games based on the Hello Kitty brand.
Under the deal, Azerion will launch five Sanrio Hello Kitty-branded games as web-enabled HTML5 apps, the lingua franca of the web. The games will be accessible to a wide audience on both the web and mobile devices. The companies will create cross-platform games based on the pop icon.
Azerion is planning a series of joint marketing initiatives to introduce the new Hello Kitty across its diverse platforms to its audiences across the globe. The Dutch company will develop and distribute multimedia promotional events and community engagement through social media channels, featuring video trailers and other assets.
Azerion has more than 900 employees at its headquarters in Schiphol-Rijk, the Netherlands, and 19 other offices. The company acquired Spil Games in 2019, and it has games such as Operate Now Hospital and Habbo. It raised $242 million in April, and it has 220 million casual players around the world.
Azerion said in an email to GamesBeat that this is a brand exposure partnership, where Hello Kitty expands the reach of games on the partner network of publishers. And Azerion said it normally monetizes games via advertising, in-app purchases, and subscriptions. Azerion has a catalog of more than 16,300 games, portals that get millions of visitors. This, linked to its adtech offering, makes an ecosystem where the company offers the content and monetize it in different ways.
Through this partnership, Azerion will provide Sanrio’s Hello Kitty-branded games with a reach of up to 220 million unique players.
Erol Erturk, the executive vice president of games and strategy at Azerion, said in a statement that the partnership will support Sanrio’s plan to turn Hello Kitty into a full-fledged media franchise. Sanrio said the coming games are casual web games, which are simplified in gameplay to address younger audience behavior and gameplay habits, while they are rich in content and art.
The first games include Hello Kitty Pinball (launching July 12) and Hello Kitty Jumper. Hello Kitty has been around since 1960.