Benzinga | Sep 21, 2020 05:26AM EDT

The9 and French Game Developer Voodoo Signed Cooperation and Publishing Agreement

The9 Limited (NASDAQ:NCTY) today announced that it has signed an Agreement with Voodoo, a French game developer and publisher. The9 and Voodoo will collaborate on the publishing and operation of casual games in mainland China. The9 will publish and operate under this agreement two, with an option for a third, casual games with strong IAP (In App Purchase) licensed by Voodoo.

Voodoo is one of the world's largest developers and publishers of casual games and hyper-casual games. Voodoo's games have been downloaded 3.7 billion times on iOS and Android phones cumulatively up-to-date, with monthly active users of 300 million. Voodoo has released more than 100 games, which are widely welcomed by players, many of which have become successful intellectual properties ("IPs").

Chris Shen, the President of The9 said, "With the expansion of the game user base, casual games have shown rapid development prospects in China and worldwide. Through our strategic cooperation with Voodoo to jointly publish and operate a variety of casual games in China, we can leverage the popularity of high-profile game IPs in the Chinese market to grow our casual game market share. Based on Voodoo's rich experience in data-driven game optimization, and its ownership of a large number of famous game IPs, we believe that Voodoo together with The9 have a great advantage in the field of casual game publishing in the mainland China market. I believe that players will be fascinated by the new look and richer game play of these well-known hyper-causal games, which will bring a new trend to the casual game market."

Hubert Larenaudie, COO of Voodoo commented, "Voodoo sees tremendous growth opportunity in China. Collaborating with The9 to adapt two upcoming casual titles will be our first effort on having In App Purchase focused games in China. Voodoo will build up the core of its business in China through the partnership with Tencent to bring our hyper-casual games to Chinese players."