Adtech giant AI.tech is backing new publisher Arcade to take on hybridcasual giants like Voodoo, Supersonic, SayGames and Supercent.
Arcade is led by ex-Stillfront, Huawei, Google and King exec Alexandre Salem, and is headquartered in Dubai. It is backed by adtech giant and startup incubator AI.tech, which also owns user acquisition business advertising.tech and adtech company media.net, both of which are poised to support Arcade as it signs games and scales up this year.
Cofounder and president of Arcade Alexandre Salem could not disclose the level of financial backing Arcade has from AI.tech, but he did tell us that the firm has “a very high bar” and “amazing financial and operational support” from its backer.
The new hybridcasual publisher was officially formed earlier this year after Salem and AI.tech agreed that there was a shortage of publishing nous in the market, relative to the number of mobile games being developed now and in the future thanks to the rise of AI-powered tools.
“My thesis was that the development of games is becoming increasingly commoditised with AI and with the game engines…I know a lot of people building really high value games with Cursor or Antigravity plus Unity,” Salem told us.
“Increasingly the bottleneck is distribution and user acquisition know-how…this is how we clicked with our investor, AI.tech, because they shared this thesis for a long time and they were trying to find an operator to meet and build this business with their support.”
Salem continued: “We want to bridge the gap between those incredibly talented developers who are anywhere, including in villages in the middle of nowhere, who today, with just internet connection, AI and a game engine can build great games but don’t have UA know-how or connections with platforms and ad networks. This is where we can add value and give a chance to those small or medium developers to reach big markets.”
Arcade currently has nine staff, but not for long, says Salem. The plan is to get to 20 by the end of the year, though it is only hiring people with several years of experience in mobile game publishing. It has also hired several staff from the real-money gaming space, though it is “laser-focused on hybridcasual” says Salem.
“There are role models that we have in the industry – personally, I’ve been a long term admirer of Voodoo in France, Supersonic in Israel, SayGames in Eastern Europe…we also admire what’s happening in South Korea with Supercent. Those are the companies that we are watching that are inspiring us.”
Developers who sign with Arcade can continue to develop the game while Salem’s team can run any or all of the other parts of a live hybridcasual game, including user acquisition, product roadmap, market intelligence, analytics and monetisation, says Salem.
Another quirk of being backed by AI.tech is that the company owns the premium domain arcade.com – and it might move into webgames further down the road. “What I see around me, like with family and friends, is a lot of people are just tired of the app stores and of the experience of downloading games…it seems so old fashioned,” adds Salem.
“Arcade.com is an amazing domain…it has potential, but we don’t want to be distracted, we are considering [webgames] as a potential add-on. But to be clear, mobile publishing is going to be the focus.”
