Scientific Games Corporation has further strengthened its iGaming content offering and production capabilities following the acquisition of ELK Studios, a European games developer, with a focus on distribution across the North American market.
Based in Stockholm, Sweden, ELK Studios has a lengthy history of creating successful titles with a mobile-first focus, including Cygnus, Katmandu, and Wild Toro II. Many of its games also feature the X-iter tool that allows players to jump into the action through special predefined modes.
The acquisition shall see Scientific Games take ELK's content into the US and Canada markets while further enhancing its position as a content provider in the UK and Europe.
Barry Cottle, President and CEO of Scientific Games, said: "Acquiring ELK Studios demonstrates once again our commitment to make targeted, value enhancing investments designed to advance our cross-platform content capabilities. The ELK Studios team is packed with talent and enhances our existing in-house teams and capabilities. The highly synergistic combination of their top-ranked games and our leading OpenGaming ecosystem offers exciting distribution opportunities in the U.S. and Canada. I am thrilled to welcome them to our team."
ELK Studios will still continue to work independently when creating new titles, but this time they will also utilize Scientific Games' resources including commercial scale, market expansion, support in US and Canada, game IP, and data analytics tools.
Dylan Slaney, CEO iGaming at Scientific Games, said: "We have had a strategic partnership with ELK Studios for a number of years and its games have performed brilliantly across the OpenGaming platform. ELK is one of the most innovative, and top-ranked studios in iGaming. Their passion and enthusiasm for producing games of stand-out quality is infectious. They will play a pivotal role in helping us continue to provide players with even more immersive and engaging experiences."
Filip Säfbeck at ELK Studios said, "This deal is the fruit of many years of hard work by a team that is fully committed to crafting high-quality online gaming experiences. We see it as the perfect time to join the Scientific Games team, given that our ambitions to grow through innovation and into the U.S. and Canada are in total alignment. We have experienced first-hand through our OpenGaming partnership that Scientific Games can take our games to the next level. This acquisition offers us a solid base to bring to market a wide range of exciting new slots more smoothly than ever to online casino partners across the globe."
Scientific Games' has recently made several iGaming acquisitions over the past few months, including slot developer Lightning Box and live casino provider Authentic Gaming.
Source:
https://www.scientificgames.com/newsroom/scientific-games-advances-original-igaming-content-offering-and-production-capabilities-with-acquisition-of-elk-studios/
