Ocean Hunter

What is Ocean Hunter?

“That’s where I think Game in a Box becomes really interesting,” Curwen says. “The ambition isn’t to use technology to make average games faster. It’s to give talented creators the freedom to try more ideas and hopefully produce better games.”

As work on Game in a Box progressed, Yggdrasil began to see an opportunity extending beyond its own production process.

Historically, building a game studio meant putting all the necessary components in place – from developers and mathematicians to QA and compliance, as well as the underlying systems and integrations. Alternatively, a business looking to enter the market could acquire an existing studio.

How to play Ocean Hunter

According to Done, such a tax rise would lead Betfred to close 495 of its shops within a year, resulting in the loss of 2,575 jobs and roughly £67 million in foregone tax revenue for the Exchequer.

Betfred has already shuttered 132 outlets this year, following last year’s RGD increase.

“We have tried hard to protect all our sites and the colleagues who work in them, but the combined impact of higher employer National Insurance contributions, wage inflation, increases in gambling taxes and wider economic uncertainty has left us with no choice,” said Chief Executive Jo Whittaker in a statement to iGB at the time the closures were announced.

About Ocean Hunter

According to Multiples.VC, the average enterprise multiple (EV/EBITDA) of top US-listed gaming companies is currently 10x. Data from New York University last updated in January pegged the overall market average at 23.9x and 19.7x among EBITDA-positive firms, suggesting the sector is undervalued relative to other industries. In a report released Monday, Fitch Ratings said most North American gaming companies hold “Stable” outlooks with “adequate rating headroom” despite consumer headwinds.

Macquarie’s Beynon agrees with that sentiment, pointing to the relative stability of gaming companies through tough economic stretches such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Bankruptcies in the sector have been low relative to the broader market, he notes, and both land-based and digital companies have reason for optimism moving forward.

“It’s certainly not lost on us that this sector has underperformed for several years in a row just because it doesn’t have either the growth of say, tech companies, or the perceived free cash flow-insulated businesses, which we believe it does…We’ve thought there’s been value in the sector for a few years, particularly this year,” he told iGB.