Jam City was founded by the
Myspace co-founders
Chris DeWolfe,
Colin Digiaro and
Aber Whitcomb, and former
20th Century Fox executive Josh Yguado. The company launched in 2010 when the co-founders raised from
Austin Ventures for their business, then called Platform G. Platform G acquired MindJolt, a
social gaming platform founded by Richard Fields, in March 2010 and took its name. In June 2013, SGN acquired Mob Science, a developer of social games known for
Legends: Rise of a Hero. The company launched the game
Panda Pop in 2013, which would later become one of the highest-grossing mobile games. The match-3
puzzle game Cookie Jam launched in 2014.
Cookie Jam was named
Facebook's game of the year with more than 100 million downloads and 5 million active players at the time.
Cookie Jam was also among the 20 highest-grossing mobile games for
Google Play and the
App Store. In the wake of
Cookie Jams success, the South Korean mobile game company
Netmarble invested in SGN in July 2015, becoming SGN's largest shareholder; this was one of the largest investments in mobile gaming since 2013. By the time of Netmarble's investment, SGN games had been downloaded 500 million times. Following Netmarble's investment, SGN bought the developers Fat Rascal Games and Kiwi Inc. in late 2015, followed by
TinyCo in July 2016. The latter acquisition raised SGN's staff count from 125 to 400. Mobile entertainment games that TinyCo had created include
Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff and
Marvel Avengers Academy. SGN rebranded as Jam City in September 2016, On April 25, 2018, Jam City released
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, a mobile game based on
J. K. Rowling's
Wizarding World franchise. Within its first day, the game was ranked first on the App Store's free-to-play category and reached tenth place on the list of top-grossing games across categories. It was the fastest of Jam City's games to reach $100 million in revenue, generating in its first year. By October 2019, it had been downloaded 54.6 million times. The game was nominated for Best Breakthrough Game during the 2019 Google Play Awards. Jam City bought the intellectual property, management, and development team of
Bingo Pop from
Uken Games in November 2018, expanding geographically into
Toronto, Canada. Also in 2018, Jam City and
Disney reached a multi-year deal for Jam City to develop licensed games based on stories and characters from Disney and
Pixar. Jam City announced in January 2019 that it raised in funding from
JPMorgan Chase Bank,
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and others to support Jam City's acquisitions and global growth initiatives. Jam City acquired
Berlin-based studio 231 Play in April. DeWolfe told
GamesBeat that the acquisition of studios in Toronto and Berlin allowed Jam City to expand into more game genres, such as
solitaire,
mahjong, and
bingo. According to analytics provider Sensor Tower, solitaire, mahjong, and bingo games ranked among Jam City's top games as of February 2021. By mid-2020, Jam City's valuation was estimated at greater than . On May 20, 2021, Jam City announced it would become a
public company through a merger with DPCM Capital Inc., a
special-purpose acquisition company. The merger valued Jam City at , including debt. The merger was expected to close later in 2021. In August 2022, Jam City
laid off 150–200 people (17% of its headcount), primarily affecting Ludia. DeWolfe and Whitcomb resigned from the company in January 2023 to establish Plai Labs. In their place, Jam City moved Yguado into the CEO role and appointed Netmarble's
chairman, SeungWon Lee, as the
executive chairman. In August 2024, it was reported that am had laid off 85 workers, a 10 percent cut to its workforce, after "lower-than-expected" performances from games like
Lovelink and
Jurassic World Alive. In March 2025, it was announced that Ludia had been sold after receiving an unsolicited offer from a group of Canadian investors. About 130 employees were included in the sale. == Selected games ==