Well, I sure didn’t expect to be writing an update post with a title like this. But it’s true! On Tuesday, August 30th 2022, it was announced that Wildworks (the company that makes Animal Jam) has been acquired by a company called Nazara Technologies. News broke from a few buiness websites that morning. Clark Stacey, the CEO of Wildworks, formally announced it around noon.
Before we get into what this means for Animal Jam. It might be worth going into some of the business details of the acquisition. Wildworks was bought for 10.4 million US dollars. Nazara Technologies is a company based out of India that was founded in 2000. Taking a look at their website, they seem fairly experienced in the world of mobile games. They also own an app called Kiddopia, which is a subscription serivce “gamifed learning” app. They also dabble in the world of esports,, with their “Nodwin Gaming” brand. I was a little nervous when I first saw this website. Animal Jam seems to be the first big IP (intellectual property) that Nazara has worked with. But their Esports division seems to have some good connections. Thankfully, my worries were mostly lifted after Clark made his Instagram post.
In the post’s description, Clark details what this means for Animal Jam players and fans of Wildworks games in general.
Clark has been talking with the leadership over at Nazara for four years. They have a good relationship.
Now Wildworks has funding from a company with plenty of cash. The Animal Jam team will be expanding bringing more features and new experiences into the game, as well as optimization and bug fixes.
Clark also mentions Animal Jam expanding into new parts of the world. Presumably this means India and surrounding regions.
While not mentioned in this post, other business news sites state that Clark and the rest of the existing Wildworks team will continue to control Animal Jam. New people are not taking over the game.
In a semi-recent interview with Delocate, Clark talks a bit about the state of Animal Jam Classic. The game is still running on version of Flash inside of the Animal Jam Player. The game is pushing the limits of what can be done with Flash, and Clark talks about how difficult it is to even add the new recolors of existing items. Adding new animals and items is basically not a possibility. That is… until now? Clark goes on to talk about the possibility of working with another company to bring Animal Jam Classic to newer technology called WebGL. I believe that the company he was talking about is Nazara Technologies. I highly recommend watching the interview if you’d like to know more about the aging tech behind AJ Classic, what they would like to add, and the future of the game. (It’s not shutting down!)
Sorry that this post is kinda just a wall of text. There’s not many visuals I can use in a post about business stuff. I think the future of Animal Jam is looking very bright. I have faith that the game will be improving, and hopefully reach new heights!
-Asteralium