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from ‘other operations’ – including social and online – almost treble year-on-year to $64.7m when announcing its results for Q1 2012. Though the Playtika acquisition continues to be seen as the deal which alerted the egaming industry to the potential of social, the company’s products, aside from Slotomania, have suffered in comparison. Dice game Farkle Pro only draws around 130,000 monthly active users as it continues to decline, and a Chinese-language variant of Slotomania has been even less successful with only 30,000 monthly actives. Coupled with this, Caesars CEO Gary Loveman appeared to dismiss Playtika as being “a lot of investment … not a lot of results,” at a recent results presentation. Online and social currently accounts for just 2.8% of Caesars’ total net revenues of $2.27bn, making it – for now – a minor consideration in the operator’s business.
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AC TI V E M O N TH LY Y TO P IA 'S M SE R S O N LA N D U B IN G O IS
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Acquired Mytopia for an initial $18m in June 2010; at the time, described as forming “the cornerstone” of the company’s mobile and social strategy with plans to license its products via 888’s B2B arm Dragon?sh. Then-CEO Gigi Levy claimed the deal gave 888 “an immediate footprint in the fast-growing social gaming arena,” while Guy Ben-Artzi, CEO of Real Dice, the company from which the business was purchased, said “888 understands where the market is going”. Just over a year later these words rang hollow, after the decision was taken to fully impair the Mytopia goodwill for a charge of $20.7m in August last year. At the time, the business was seen as unpro?table and the write-down was thought to be prudent as it ridded the company of legacy issues associated with the operator. Then-interim CEO Brian Mattingl ey described the division’s failure to hit its targets as “unfortunate” but stressed that it had still managed to give 888 “a foothold in a new segment”. What a difference a few months make. Less than a year later Mattingley, now con?rmed as CEO, essentially brought the business back from the dead, announcing the launch of “the next chapter” of Mytopia in April 2012. While exact ?gures have not been released, Mytopia’s core product Bingo Island is thought to have been drawing healthy revenues on the Facebook platform, on which it has almost 1m monthly active users. It will also relaunch a social poker offering, Paci?c Poker, which was released in beta before being shut down to resolve glitches, and has launched a slot offering to compliment its Bingo Island product. 888’s management expect the business to break even in the second half of 2012.
Lola, Mytopia’s Bingo Island mascot
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