Ubisoft Makes Major Move in Mobile With 2048 Developer Acquisition

Assassin's Creed publisher Ubisoft has acquired mobile game publisher Ketchapp, the company announced this week. With the acquisition, Ubisoft said it becomes "the fourth largest mobile game publisher when measured by number of downloads."

Ketchapp may not be a household name, but you may familiar with some of its games. Perhaps most notably, it published the Threes-like 2048, as well as ZigZag, Stack, Stick Hero, Twist, and Jelly Jump.

Since Ketchapp's founding in 2014, its games have racked up almost 700 million downloads, which comes out to more than 23 million downloads every month.

In a statement, Ubisoft mobile executive director Jean-Michel Detoc explained that the acquisition of Ketchapp also helps in another key area: advertising.

"With Ketchapp, Ubisoft acquires a highly profitable publisher with a successful portfolio of free-to-play games for mobile," Detoc said. "This acquisition gives Ubisoft one of the world's leading mobile game publishers and reinforces our advertising capabilities in mobile gaming."

Ketchapp managing directors and co-founders Antoine and Michel Morcos said in their own statement that they are "thrilled to become part of Ubisoft's international network of talented teams."

"We founded Ketchapp with the intention of creating captivating gaming experiences, and we are looking forward to leveraging Ubisoft's creativity and resources to enrich our existing and upcoming titles," the pair added.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed; the sale is expected to close in Ubisoft's 2016-2017 third quarter.

Ubisoft already has a mobile game business, one of its biggest and best-known franchises being Hungry Shark. The Ketchapp buy comes amid Vivendi's "unsolicited and unwelcome" share-buying action, which some believe may lead to a hostile takeover.