Keywords Studios acquires Waste Creative and Wicked Witch

Keywords Studios has announced that it has acquired two new companies, Waste Creative, a digital creative marketing agency, and Wicked Witch, a development studio.

Waste Creative provides various creative production services to many clients across the mobile gaming space such as Nintendo, Supercell, and Riot Games. Wicked Witch is a work-for-hire developer for large publishers, and has worked with Riot Games and Microsoft in the past.

Keywords Studios will pay up to £9.8 million ($12.9 million) for Waste Creative, including the team of 70 staff that currently works there. This is comprised of initial consideration of £2.2 million ($2.9 million), and an additional £7.6 million ($10 million), which is dependent on the company’s performance over the next three years. The company will continue to be led by Co-Founders Visar Statovci and Mike Petricevic, maintaining the structure and leadership built up over the years.

The acquisition for Wicked Witch sees Keywords Studios buying through Tantalus Media, which Keywords had previously invested in. Keywords Studios will pay £4.9 million ($6.5 million), and acquire the studio and all 73 employees that work there.

Wicked Witch expressed how excited it was to be joining Keywords, which will allow it to accelerate its plans for growth and become much more of a player in the industry. Waste Creative echoed this sentiment, adding that it can now provide even better services to meet the needs of its clients over time.

Both of these companies fulfill an important role in the games industry that’s only becoming more important. Work-for-hire developers and marketing services are essential to getting games finished in time and into the eyes of those who want to play them.

The services these two companies cover include marketing a game to the right people and getting betas out on time, ensuring that the brand image is right, and much more. All of which helps a game succeed, even against Triple-A developers. The combination of offering the services of both companies at once will be a huge asset to any company, and now that’s possible through Keywords Studios, which can create a package encasing both.