Australian gaming giant Aristocrat is considering selling off Plarium and Big Fish as part of a strategic review of its mobile game portfolio.
Plarium and Big Fish represent two of the three companies in its Pixel United free-to-play mobile game division. Product Madness, the third outfit, was not mentioned as being part of the strategic review, and the potential sale also excludes Big Fish’s social casino games.
“In respect of the Group’s casual and midcore gaming assets, that is, Big Fish Games (excluding the Big Fish Social Casino assets) and Plarium Global, Aristocrat intends to conduct a strategic review,” the company said.
“No decisions have been made, and Aristocrat will assess all options to maximise shareholder value and ensure the ongoing success of these businesses going forward. Aristocrat will provide more detail on the outcomes of the review as appropriate.”
The group also outlined the financial performance of its Pixel United division as part of the H124 financial update. While Pixel United’s H1 social casino game bookings were up on the year prior ($496.3m compared to $484.5m in 2023), both its ‘RPG, Strategy and Action’ and ‘Casual’ categories were down.
RPG, Strategy and Action games were down to $283.7m for H124 compared to $296.4m in H123, and Casual was down to $97.2m versus $104.6m the year prior.
It also broke out the bookings of key Pixel United titles. Plarium’s flagship game Raid: Shadow Legends fell a little to $220.9m for H124 compared to $222.5m the year prior. Its social casino portfolio was broadly steady, but casual game EverMerge dropped from posting $44m in H123 to $22m in the half just ended. Mech Arena fell from $27m to $22.3m in the same period.
Vikings: War of Clans and Gummy Drop also saw slight declines. Merge Gardens posted bookings of $29.2m, up from $7.3m the year prior, thought that growth appears to be as a result of an acquisition partway through 2023.
Plarium Play, its direct to consumer webshop, represented 11% of the Pixel United group’s total revenue, which was down to $875m, a drop of 1.8% compared to H123. EBITDA for H124 was up to $317.9m, a rise of 16.2% compared to the same period a year ago.
Aristocrat added that Pixel United’s Average Bookings Per Daily Active User (ABPDAU) grew 20%. And there was further detail on its UA spend, which decreased from 26.9% to 22.2% of its revenue in H124 compared to the year prior. It also lowered its FY24 guidance to forecast that UA would be 21-24% of Pixel United’s revenue, down from 24-27%.
