SOFTGAMES is looking beyond Funday Games' instant portfolio as it searches for proven web and mobile casual games that can grow across its platform network.
SOFTGAMES is turning its instant-games operation into a platform for buying casual titles. The company is looking for games that already have audiences but need wider reach or stronger infrastructure. The German operator says it is also considering individual portfolios, intellectual property and entire studios. Earlier this year, it bought Funday Games' back catalogue of instant games.
The acquisition strategy
The business case is simple. A game that works on one platform may have more room to grow when it gains access to established distribution relationships, live operations, data systems and monetisation expertise. SOFTGAMES already operates across Meta, Google, Microsoft, Reddit and Samsung. It says new titles can use that existing base instead of requiring a separate expansion effort.
Instant gaming is still fragmented on the supply side. Smaller developers may own casual games with established audiences but struggle to maintain releases and live operations across web, mobile and desktop platforms. SOFTGAMES is offering to take on that work while keeping experienced teams and the creative identity of the games it buys.
Scale alone is not the test. SOFTGAMES says it wants web and mobile casual games with proven audiences, healthy retention and monetisation metrics, clear intellectual-property rights and technical setups that can be integrated quickly.
Funday Games sets the model
The Funday Games deal shows most clearly how SOFTGAMES wants these transactions to work. Funday Games changed its strategic direction and stopped pursuing the instant games in the catalogue. SOFTGAMES took them on instead. Funday Games continues to operate independently under its new focus. It did not disappear into the buyer.
Available independent search results do not reliably confirm the transaction's date, purchase terms or the catalogue's title-by-title composition. They also do not independently verify the transfer beyond the arrangement described by the companies. That limits what can be said about the deal. The transaction remains the basis of SOFTGAMES' acquisition strategy, but its financial and legal details have not been publicly substantiated in the available material.
Funday Games' continued standalone activity also appears in a later personnel update. Neon River reported that Marc Cartwright had been appointed Game Director. It described him as a games specialist with roughly 20 years of experience, including leadership roles at Jagex, CI Games and Tarsier Studios. The update supports the picture of an operating Funday Games. It does not confirm the terms or scope of the SOFTGAMES transaction.
SOFTGAMES says it will keep deal structures flexible. It may acquire one title, a catalogue or intellectual property. It may also buy an entire company when the fit is right. The approach is less a standard studio consolidation than a way for games and teams to change ownership without forcing every seller to abandon its wider plans.
The companies have not disclosed a transaction value or a title-by-title breakdown of the acquired catalogue. The confirmed details are the transfer of Funday Games' back catalogue and SOFTGAMES' wider search for more opportunities. There is no confirmed acquisition spree. No independent official statements confirming later acquisitions, legal closing details or financial results were identified in the available search material.
Where the scale comes from
SOFTGAMES was founded in 2006. The company says its portfolio contains more than 500 casual instant games. It also claims that Meta's platforms alone can reach more than a billion players. Its wider catalogue is available across Meta, Google, Microsoft, Reddit, Samsung and other platforms.
Those figures describe potential reach. They do not guarantee users for every game, and they do not show how individual titles perform.
The company also points to investment in AI-enabled tools to speed up global releases and game upgrades. That is an operational claim, not independent evidence of better performance. The available announcement does not include test results, development costs or measured growth for the Funday Games catalogue.
Search results show current Funday Games entries, including Scritchy Scratchy, in mobile-store ranking data collected by SocialPeta. The listings show that games associated with Funday Games remain visible in mobile distribution. They do not prove that rights moved to SOFTGAMES. They also do not establish the size of the acquired catalogue or reveal revenue and audience figures.
SOFTGAMES' pitch is strongest when distribution and maintenance are the main problems. A studio with a viable casual game may gain wider platform relationships and an established live-operations team. A game with weak retention, unclear rights or a technical setup that is difficult to integrate does not appear to meet the company's stated criteria.
What developers should expect
SOFTGAMES says it wants a simple, fast process, but it has not published standard terms or guaranteed timelines. The offer is aimed at developers tired of running a game across several platforms. It also targets studios that want to refocus their businesses. The company says it is selective while remaining open to single-title discussions and larger portfolio deals.
That flexibility gives the strategy room to work, but it leaves questions for players. The announcement does not name the next targets, explain changes to the acquired games or confirm release plans for new platforms. It also does not establish whether every acquired title will receive the same level of live support.
The distinction matters in a market where a change in ownership can alter a game's distribution without improving its content. Readers tracking wider platform ownership stories can compare this catalogue-focused approach with an earlier ownership report. SOFTGAMES is talking about operating scale, not a project led by a platform holder.
SOFTGAMES has identified a gap between talented casual developers and the work required to distribute instant games across multiple platforms. Its acquisition plan is more convincing as an operating model than as a promise of endless expansion. The company has set out the games it wants, the systems it can provide and the deal structures it will consider.
Until more titles, terms or player-facing updates are disclosed, the Funday Games catalogue remains the clearest evidence that the strategy is active. The wider powerhouse ambition is still a plan, not a finished result.
Instant games remove downloads from the first step of play by running through supported web or platform environments. That convenience does not remove the need for retention, monetisation, updates or technical maintenance. In SOFTGAMES' model, those less visible systems are the assets shared across the catalogue. That may make the acquisition strategy more important to a game's long-term availability than the ownership transfer alone.
