Zynga-owned Rollic and toy giant Mattel are teaming up to make a Barbie game, set to launch later this year.
Mattel said the game was part of an “ongoing expansion of its licensed digital games portfolio”, which is being led by Glu, Kabam and Scopely veteran Mike DeLaet.
The announcement did not contain any imagery or detail on the game besides it being a “mass-market” title. It is expected to launch in 2024.
We have asked for more detail and if there’s any tie-in with last year’s blockbuster film, and will update this report if we get more info.
Rollic’s portfolio recently passed 2.7bn lifetime downloads worldwide, according to the announcement. The company was founded in Istanbul, Turkey, and had a string of hypercasual hits before being acquired by Zynga for upwards of $168m in August 2020. Zynga was of course later acquired by Take-Two for $12.7bn in 2022.
When we spoke to Zynga EVP Yaron Leyvand in December 2023, he told us that the launch of Top Troops and Match Factory in late 2023 were just the start of a busy new release schedule that stretches out over the next two years.
“I’m excited about the slate, I think it has never been stronger,” he said. “We have a lot of games going out…I can’t get into names but we have announced a few and we will announce the others – in the next six to eight quarters there will be a lot of games going out, of which Top Troops and Match Factory were the first.”
He also said that “the conversations are happening” around bringing some of Take-Two’s premier game IP to mobile – which includes Bioshock, Borderlands and of course Rockstar’s properties – but said he “can’t get into too much detail”.
As we’ve reported recently, Zynga has just soft launched CSR 3, and Star Wars Hunters is also expected to go global at some point this year, after several delays.
