PlaySide Studios shares jump 55% on ASX debut

PlaySide Studios Ltd (ASX:PLY) has started trading on the ASX today following the completion of an initial public offering (IPO) that raised A$15 million from investors at 20 cents per share. The share price surged 55% on the first day of trading, closing at 31 cents. PlaySide is based in Melbourne and has a team of over 70 games creators and other staff. The company’s portfolio consists of 52 titles delivered across four platforms: Mobile, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and PC. Key milestones Playside has achieved several key milestones since June 30 2020: Animal Warfare mobile game was launched on August 19 and has achieved 5.4 million downloads as of December 12. This title continues to generate strong daily downloads and is achieving key daily active user and monetisation metrics. World of Pets, a game in partnership with the Norris Nuts Family was announced on the Family’s YouTube channel on December 6th. It is currently in a closed beta test phase and the level of test registrations have been positive. Project Achilles has been officially named “Age of Darkness: Final Stand”. This is a top-down real time strategy game where players must build the final citadel of humanity and defend it against swarms of undead. Age of Darkness: Final Stand will be released initially as a PC title with a potential for later release to console. Early access release is planned for April 2021. Equestriad World Tour, a game in partnership with GoGallop Studios, soft launched in November and has achieved positive retention and monetisation metrics since launch. The focus going forward is to continue improving the current monetisation metrics as well as adding new content for the highly engaged user base. Fastest growing segment of the games industry The mobile games market is the largest and fastest growing segment of the games industry with 2020 market revenue of US$77.2 billion growing at 13.3% year on year. Playside will continue to have a strong focus on mobile games and funds raised from the IPO will be used to secure rights to develop mobile games from select media brands within the company’s Brands & Licensing Division and to expand the development team for new original IP titles. The company will also invest additional resources in its data analytics team, sales and marketing teams including user acquisition, and in opening a business development office in Los Angeles when the risk from the COVID-19 crisis can be appropriately managed. “Building a profitable business on a global stage” PlaySide managing director, CEO & co-founder Gerry Sakkas said: “PlaySide has in the past few years proven its ability to make games that millions of people love to play while sustainably building a profitable business on a global stage and, having now listed on the ASX, we believe we’ll be able to scale our skills, science and art to unlock significant value for PlaySide shareholders. “As a close team we are excited and motivated for the next phase of our journey and, as you can see from the business update today, we’ve continued our growth momentum through the IPO period and I look forward to updating you regularly on the rewards of our hard work.”