Opera To Focus On Gaming Platform

January 23, 2021 Off By Rowena Cletus

Opera, the familiar internet browser maker and leading consumer internet brand, recently acquired YoYo Games, developer of the world’s most popular 2D game engine. The acquisition will give rise to Opera Gaming, which is the company’s second building block in its corporate strategy of global expansion.

This acquisition follows the rapid growth of Opera’s innovative Opera GX browser, which is the first browser specifically designed for gamers.

Krystian Kolondra, EVP Browser at Opera said, “There has been a dramatic shift in the gaming world as more and more people start not only playing games, but also creating and publishing them. GameMaker Studio2 is a best-in-class game development software, and it simplifies the creating, developing, and marketing of games for a variety of web-supported platforms.

Kolondra went on to explain: “Performance is essential to even 2D gaming, and maintaining performance on a mobile device or laptop, on a variable bandwidth network, or across multiple locations or networks, requires thinking outside of traditional application silos.”

Annette De Freitas, Head of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at Opera Gaming, added: “In December 2020, Opera GX saw 7 million monthly active users (MAUs), up 350% year over year, while YoYo Games’ GameMaker engine attracted 400K new users.”

GameMakerStudio is an integrated game development software, performance-tuned 2/2.5D engine powering millions of hits such as Double Dragon, Undertale, and Hyper Light Drifter across major platforms. You don’t need any coding skills to start creating games with Game Maker Studio.

Since the learning curve isn’t steep, Opera believes that many creative people will be drawn to the gaming platform, which should foster a community that is eager to build and share their video game creations with the world.