Animoca Brands, the company advancing digital property rights for gaming and the metaverse, today announced it has completed the acquisition of 100% of the issued capital of Notre Game s.r.o. (Notre Game), a game development and publishing company known for Scratch Wars, the innovative hybrid physical-digital collectible card mobile game. Notre Game is currently developing Scratch Lords, a new play-and-earn NFT game based on the success and game mechanics of Scratch Wars.
Notre Game was founded in 2016 in Prague by experienced game designer Jiří Mikoláš with the mission to create novel games and innovate on existing game concepts. Since its inception, the company has trailblazed its own path in gaming, putting a strong focus on innovative and bold projects in areas eschewed by most other developers of mobile games. Its previously launched game Scratch Wars is a physical-virtual hybrid mobile collectible card game with scratchable paper cards that are unique, scannable, and provide play opportunities both online and offline.
Scratch Wars was made available in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where it generated €2 million (approx. A$3 million at current exchange rate) in sales of the game’s scratch cards, which were sold in physical stores. The game’s hybrid model achieved an average paid conversion rate of 12% of new users, meaning that 12% of users who downloaded and installed the app went on to purchase physical cards at retail stores and scanned the cards into the Scratch Wars app.
Animoca Brands and Notre Game are now working to bring to market Scratch Lords, a new and innovative collectible card mobile game based on the success and game mechanics of Scratch Wars, but with updated features including NFT integration and trading. Scratch Lords is expected to be available in Q3 2022.
The management and staff of Notre Game will continue to operate the company following its acquisition by Animoca Brands.
As a part of Animoca Brands, Notre Game will be able to expand its products to the global market and access the considerable networks, resources, and know-how within the wider Animoca Brands group. Meanwhile, Animoca Brands has gained another experienced and talented game studio to bolster its open metaverse development efforts.
Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, commented: “We were impressed by the innovation and boldness that Notre Game demonstrated with its physical-virtual hybrid game model. The company has a solid team with strong leadership and the kind of experience and mindset that we are looking for in our mission to contribute to the establishment of the open metaverse.”
Jiří Mikoláš, CEO and game designer of Notre Game, said: “Thanks to the vision of Animoca Brands, we now have the opportunity to show our ideas to the whole world, marking an important culmination of our game development efforts after years of hard work.”
The consideration for the acquisition of Notre Game was in both cash and shares of Animoca Brands. The consideration amount was not considered material, and the shares of Animoca Brands were issued at a value of A$4.50 each.
