Chinese game developer and operator Diandian Interactive was reportedly sold by its parent company FunPlus to Shanghai Zhongji Investment Holding for USD960 million, which is reportedly the largest acquisition in the Chinese gaming industry.
According to reports in foreign media, this is also one of the largest acquisitions of an unlisted gaming company in the global market. The acquisition represents for the attraction of games to the Chinese mainstream users. During the first half of 2014, the Chinese gaming industry achieved operating revenue of CNY52 billion, which was about USD9 billion.
Public files show that Diandian Interactive independently developed and published several casual social games, including Family Farm which claims to attract four million users every day. In addition, Diandian Interactive is the operator of many international games under the global gaming brand FunPlus Game. At present, FunPlus has about 200 employees. Headquartered in Beijing, the company has offices in San Francisco and Vancouver.
In March 2014, FunPlus completed its second round financing of USD74 million. In 2012, the company gained USD13 million in its first round of financing. FunPlus currently has over 15 million monthly active users on Facebook, ranking as the 23rd highest application developer on Facebook.
Family Farm was launched on Facebook in 2011. Since then, its registered user number continued to increase and its monthly income has maintained between USD2 million and USD3 million since 2013. Starting from the end of 2012, FunPlus published many games, including Family Farm Seaside, Royal Story, and Happy Acres.
