Sask. gaming studio inks $6.3M deal to access Chinese market

A Saskatoon-based mobile app developer is partnering with a Chinese gaming giant in an effort to expand their market.

Noodlecake Studios has sold a 70 per cent share of their company to ZPlay Information Technologies for $6.3 million.

CEO Jordan Schidlowsky told 650 CKOM Wednesday afternoon the deal gives them access to the massive Chinese population base.

“We basically doubled our market,” he said. “It’s a really tough thing for international companies to do without a Chinese partner.”

Schidlowsky said the deal allows him and his co-founders to maintain operational control of Noodlecake, while also taking advantage of the larger audience.

He added they had been searching for a Chinese joint-venture for some time.

The studio’s latest mobile game launch – an app called “Leap On!” – is already showing the benefits of the partnership with ZPlay.

In the week since the game was released, the game has been downloaded five times more in China than in the U.S. market.

“We’re seeing more revenue,” he said. “It’s great to have that access.”

Noodlecake Studios began in 2011 with the successful release of Super Stickman Golf, and has operated out of offices in the Riversdale neighbourhood of Saskatoon since.

Now the company produces one game per year, in addition to publishing up to 30 games from other studios annually.

Schidlowsky said despite the investment, their operations will stay in Saskatoon.

“We love it here,” he said. “We’ve had lots of opportunities to move to bigger cities in California and other places like Toronto and Vancouver, but Saskatoon is a really great city to work out of.”

He noted there could be an office expansion.

“There’s going to be a little bit more room to grow,” he said. “We may be expanding and growing a little more aggressively than we have in the past.”