Keywords Studios to buy games development company High Voltage for $50m

Dublin headquartered video games specialist Keywords Studios has agreed a deal to buy games development services provider High Voltage for up to $50 million.

The Chicago-based company is a full-service game developer, shipping more than 100 games across all major platforms since it was founded in 1993. Among its credits are Fortnite, Saints Row, Mortal Kombat, Hunter the Reckoning, The Conduit, and Lego Racers. The company has a subsidiary studio in New Orleans.

Under the deal, Keywords will pay an initial consideration of $23.75 million in cash and the equivalent of $9.75 million in new ordinary shares, with a deferred consideration of up to $16.5 million in cash and shares paid based on meeting performance targets and other conditions before December 31st 2021.

High Voltage is expected to generate earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $9 million in 2021.

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"With its 27-year pedigree of game development in the global video games market, High Voltage brings incredible experience, expertise and additional scale to our fast growing Game Development Service Line," said Andrew Day, chief executive of Keywords Studios

"The multitalented team at HVS brings deep expertise in the Unreal Game Engine development environment, honed particularly well in recent years through working closely with Epic Games on Fortnite, as well as a track record of having worked with many client proprietary game engines, gaming platforms and game genres, which all adds further breadth and depth to Keywords Studios' existing capabilities. It also adds a new presence in Chicago, and in New Orleans, for the group, providing access to an additional pool of talent."

The deal will see Keywords further its strategy to become the "go to" technical and creative services platform for the global video games industry. The company has made a number of key acquisition in the past couple of years, including Gnet Media last month and games development services company Heavy Iron Studios in September.

"We are tremendously excited [KEYWORDS]share our vision for augmenting our development capabilities and they will provide us the ability to embark upon a growth trajectory for our business creating the next generation of AAA games," said High Voltage founder Kerry Ganofsky. "Furthermore, Keywords Studios' investment in our studio is an outstanding sign for the continued expansion of game development in Illinois and Louisiana. "