Wooga was founded in January 2009 by Jens Begemann (
CEO), Patrick Paulisch, and Philipp Moeser (
CTO). Paulisch has since left Wooga. The first games released were only available on social networks, first and foremost on Facebook. The first game developed by Wooga was
Brain Buddies, a quiz game released in July 2009. Wooga received €5 million in a round of funding led by
Balderton Capital in November 2009. Holtzbrinck Ventures, which had provided funding earlier that year, also participated in this round. In April 2010, Wooga released its second game,
Monster World. That same year, Holtzbrinck Ventures and Balderton Investment stepped in, helping to fund a third game. In October 2010, the company employed 50 people; in 2011, that number increased to 150. In November 2010, Wooga launched
Happy Hospital. In March 2011, Wooga launched
Diamond Dash. The company raised a Series B Round of $24 million funding in May 2011.
Magic Land Island was launched during the
GDC Europe in August 2011 in
Cologne. In June 2012, the
HTML5 game was
open sourced under the name
Pocket Island on
GitHub under
MIT license and with the assets under
Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA. With the progressive development of mobile technology and the global spread of mobile devices, Wooga's focus shifted in 2012 to games for the mobile sector.
Diamond Dash was first game they released for iPhone and iPad on the iOS App Store (December 2011). In December 2012,
Diamond Dash became the first Wooga game for
Android smartphones and tablets. On 22 August 2013,
Jelly Splash was the first game to be released for mobile devices first. The game was subsequently released on Facebook in September 2013 and on Android in October 2013. For
Jelly Splash, Wooga entered into a cooperation with the South Korean
internet service provider Kakao, and the game was launched as a test title for their
KakaoTalk platform on 9 November 2013. In March 2013, Wooga launched both
Monster World mobile for iOS and ''
Pearl's Peril. Pearl's Peril
became the company’s fastest selling game. On 10 April 2013, Wooga launched Pocket Village
. After that, Wooga continued to develop its casual gaming strategy. This direction was implemented in particular with the launch of the most successful game to date, June's Journey'', at the end of 2017. Wooga decided to exclusively focus on the casual games segment and on story-driven casual games. On 20 May 2015, Wooga launched
Crazy Kings (developed by
TicBits). In December 2018, Wooga was acquired for more than $200 million by Israeli gaming company
Playtika. The
COVID-19 pandemic, which boosted the entire industry, also boosted business at Wooga. The mystery hidden object game ''June's Journey'' turned over $500 million by mid-2022 since its launch. In the same year, Wooga employed 250+ people. Since Playtika Holding Corporation's IPO on the US stock exchange
Nasdaq in January 2021, Wooga GmbH has been part of a listed company. In December 2024, Dennis Korf joined Wooga as Nai Chang's Successor and is the current Managing Director of Wooga. https://www.pocketgamer.biz/february-2025-mobile-movers-and-shakers/
Funding In May 2011, Wooga raised $24 million in venture capital. Holtzbrinck and Balderton Capital had already invested €4.4 million in venture capital in November 2009. Although all of Wooga's games are free-to-play games, whose basic game content can be used free of charge, Wooga generates revenue via paid elements and in-app purchases. == Games ==