King, a leading mobile game developer and the creator of Candy Crush, announced that it bought artificial intelligence company Peltarion.
The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Peltarion was founded in 2004 by Luka Crnkovic-Friis and Måns Essén, both of whom are AI experts from Sweden. The company’s AI technology has been utilized by organizations like NASA, Tesla, and Harvard. As part of the deal, Crnkovic-Friis and Essén will be joining the leadership team at King.
With this acquisition, King plans to employ artificial intelligence and machine learning technology more aggressively in its games.
Tjodolf Sommestad, President of King, commented, “We are proud to announce the acquisition of Peltarion. Machine learning technology is moving quickly, and by increasing our investments in this field, we expect to deliver even more creative content to our 250 million monthly players (Q1 2022) across the globe. We believe the talented Peltarion team, together with the powerful technology they have built, will help us serve our players even more effectively with more engaging games and content. This is yet another step towards our mission of making the world playful.”
“This is a monumental chapter in Peltarion history. We are excited to be part of a big AI success story in the Nordics, especially with Stockholm at its base,” said Luka Crnkovic-Friis, Peltarion CEO. “We are impressed with King for being one of the most successful Swedish tech companies and mobile game developers of modern time. The scale and reach of King, with iconic franchises like Candy Crush Saga, is a great match for our technology. The opportunities with AI seem to be endless, and we cannot wait to unlock the potential of working together.”
The acquisition of Peltarion is part of King’s new strategic mission, which includes developing top-tier AI and machine learning capabilities, which will allow for new types of innovative game design, development, and live operations abilities. In addition, King also aspires to become a hub for the world’s top talent in AI in games.
AI in games is still a nascent but quickly growing field. In the past few years, we’ve seen AI being used in games for various purposes such as pathfinding, behavior trees, and dialogue systems. However, there is a lot of potential for AI to be used in other areas of game development, and King intends to be at the forefront of this charge.
In other news, London-based games publisher Playstack had acquired mobile game developer Magic Fuel Games for an unknown sum.
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