Ubisoft Buys Notorious Mobile App Company Known For Unabashed Cloning

AAA video game company Ubisoft just made another huge stride in the mobile gaming industry with its announcement of acquiring Ketchapp. With over 20 million downloads a month, Ketchapp has an impressive repertoire and would definitely boost Ubisoft’s presence in the mobile industry. The acquisition comes with a few issues, however, namely the app company’s history of cloning other popular games.

Ubisoft has been gaining a lot of ground in the mobile app market for several years now, thanks to popular titles like “Rayman Jungle Run” and “Assassin’s Creed Pirates,” Android Headlines reports. With the addition of Ketchapp’s considerable influence on the field, Ubisoft is primed for not only mobile success but also gives them a much wide audience to reach with ads pertaining to their AAA titles.

The deal isn’t set in stone yet, however, and will only be finalized on January 1, 2017. For now, Ubisoft will be hands-off and will not interfere with the design practices of Ketchapp.

As for the company itself, Ubisoft is quite ecstatic about the acquisition. The head of the company’s mobile division, Jean-Michel Detoc also explained exactly what getting Ketchapp will mean for the French entity.

"With Ketchapp, Ubisoft acquires a highly profitable publisher with a successful portfolio of free-to-play games for mobile,” Detoc said. “This acquisition gives Ubisoft one of the world's leading mobile game publishers and reinforces our advertising capabilities in mobile gaming."

With that said, Ketchapp’s rise to success since it was founded in 2014 isn’t exactly spotless. As Eurogamer notes, the company got embroiled in a tussle where it was accused of cloning the popular mobile app “Threes” in order to make their own game called “2048.”

“2048” became the company’s biggest title, which then catapulted it to fame. “Three’s” developer, Asher Vollmer commented on Ubisoft’s decision to buy Ketchapp via Twitter with thinly-veiled disdain.