Playside adds Blizzard to list of gaming collaboration partners

Aussie game development company Playside Studios (ASX: PLY) is continuing its astronomical rise up the gaming industry ranks, having been engaged by one of the world’s largest developers, Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATV), whose portfolio includes epic titles Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo and Candy Crush. 

Although Playside will not be working on those major titles directly, the Melbourne-based developer has been engaged by Blizzard for co-development services which will include Production, Engineering and User Interface development. 

The work comes as a 10-month contract under Playside’s work-for-hire business where they provide fixed-price work for game development services. This has become incredibly popular over the past few years with the COVID-19 pandemic making it very difficult to recruit in-house game developers due to international travel restrictions. 

For Playside, it’s the ideal way to utilise its workforce while securing revenue without taking on the risk of a game flopping on release. 

“The Company is delighted to secure this contract with Activision Blizzard, one of the world’s largest game Developers and Publishers. Their portfolio of titles is a collection of some of the most prominent titles in the industry,” said Playside CEO, Gerry Sakkas. 

“PlaySide is very excited to be working with Activision Blizzard showcasing our AAA game development capabilities and this agreement is further recognition of the progress the Company has made on the global stage.” 

The deal follows similar contracts secured from other global gaming companies including One True King and 2K Games in recent months. 

Game development services will continue to be Playside’s bread-and-butter business, however, the Company recently entered the NFT space with incredible success, raising $8.38 million in new revenue from the launch of their BEANS NFT collection. 

The BEANS NFTs, which cost the company virtually nothing to mint 7,000 NFTs onto the blockchain, instantly recouped more than 3 times what Playside paid for the Dumb Ways To Die (DWTD) brand which it acquired in 2021 for $2.25m. 

The BEANS collection, a series of tokens featuring the playful beans in the DWTD portfolio, have no use case at present but Playside intends to develop the NFTs sold into avatars that can be used in their planned Bean World game to be launched in 2023.