Russian video game publisher Astrum Entertainment has become the owner of game developer Deus Craft

Astrum Entertainment, which received the Russian assets of the latter after My.Games left the Russian Federation, became the owner of one of the legal entities of the Deus Craft studio. It develops the game Grand Hotel Mania, which is considered one of the main assets of My.Games. In 2023, Deus Craft ceased public activities in Russia, including interaction with the player community. But experts note that the Russian market is still important for the studio, allowing its projects to be divided into domestic and international, similar to other My.Games developments.

The Russian video game publisher Astrum Entertainment (Astrum LLC) has become the owner of the Russian legal entity of the mobile game developer Deus Craft (Deuscraftdev), as follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. The data changed on January 10, before that the owner of the Russian company was the Cypriot DCGamePub Ltd. Until now, the studio was part of the My.Games holding, which was sold in 2022 to the managing partner of Leta Capital, Alexander Chachava.

The Astrum press service explained to Kommersant that they received the studio company as part of My.Games’ withdrawal from the Russian market (see Kommersant dated December 15, 2022). “Only a Russian legal entity without any assets is transferred to Astrum LLC,” they noted.

Deus Craft was historically based in Novosibirsk, and the legal entity that transferred to Astrum was registered there. The studio’s key current game is Grand Hotel Mania, its publisher in the app stores is named My.Games. In October 2023, the publisher reported that the game’s total revenue exceeded $100 million in four years, and Pocket Gamer considers it one of the most profitable products in the My.Games portfolio. Deus Craft places other games in stores independently. According to data.ai, there are ten such games, only two are available in the Russian segment of Google Play – Delivery Dash and “Game Evolution”.

In October 2020, My.Games, which was then the gaming division of Mail.ru Group (now VK), announced the acquisition of a 51.16% stake in Deus Craft for $14.1 million upfront plus performance payments. Its maximum amount ($35 million) would be paid only if the studio’s monthly revenue reached $15 million in the first quarter of 2021. According to My.Games, revenue from Grand Hotel Mania in March 2021 amounted to 350 million rubles.

After My.Games left Russia, Astrum Entertainment began to receive part of the company’s gaming assets on a non-cash basis (see “Kommersant” dated April 17, 2023). At the same time, Deus Craft began to curtail its public presence in the country: it deleted its VKontakte page, and by February 2023, according to the Wayback Machine, it deleted its Russian-language website. The last entry in the official Grand Hotel Mania VKontakte group is dated March 2023, but activity in the English-language Facebook group of the game (belongs to Meta, recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation) continues.

Chief editor of iXBT.games Vitaly Kazunov believes that the transition of Deuscraftdev to Astrum may be a prerequisite for the creation of versions of the Deus Craft games designed for Russia, “based on this principle, Astrum released the game Xtract in November, based on the developments of the game Hawked from My.Games “

The founder of Kanobu, Gadzhi Makhtiev, notes that Deus Craft projects show the “best results” in India and Brazil, but the Russian market also brings in significant revenue.

If the deal leads to the resumption of public activities of the studio in the Russian Federation, the expert notes, it, together with Astrum, will have to re-build feedback with local players, “community management is needed for almost all games, at least in order to deal with payments, complaints and reviews app stores.”

Yuri Litvinenko, Nikita Korolev