The Biggest Companies You’ve Never Heard of
Thursday, March 28, 2019, 6:00 AM | Leave Comment
There are a number of entertainment companies out there that turnover colossal amounts of money, but are relatively unknown.
These companies pull the strings behind the scenes and are responsible for a lot of the games you play online and offline, as well as the apps and websites that you use on a daily basis, yet for a multitude of reasons, they are simply not as well known as they should be in the United States.
They include:
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TenCent
TenCent has been called the world’s “largest and most profitable gaming company”. It’s a name that even the most hardened of gamer might not be familiar with, but they’ll certainly recognise many of the brands that TenCent own or have stock in.
They own Riot Games (League of Legends) outright and they also have a dominant share in Supercell (Clash of Clans, Boom Beach) and MiniClip (an online games website with more than 1 billion downloads). They have made their fortune in mobile games, online games, applications and websites, but it’s a fortune that far surpasses anything the likes of EA generate.
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NetEase
NetEase is another Chinese company. It’s not as big as TenCent, but its profits still outshine the likes of EA and Activision-Blizzard. They actually partner with Blizzard to distribute and manage local versions of some of their games, most notably World of Warcraft, Hearthstone and Overwatch, but they also have their own software and this is where the majority of their profit comes from.
NetEase’s biggest franchise is the Westward Journey series of games, which includes the fastest growing online game in China (with a peak count of 1.5 million players online at the same time). In fact, there are over 30 times more players subscribed to this game than there were to WoW at its peak in 2010.
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NetMarble Games
NetMarble is based in South Korea and is their largest gaming company, with an annual revenue of over $1.1 billion. They do most of their business in the east, which is why they are not as well known here in the United States, but their games have still gained a following here. Some of their most well known franchises include Lineage, Dragon Ball Online, Evilbane, and Star Wars Force Arena.
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Playtech
Playtech is a company that fans of casinos and other interactive games will recognise, but even they rarely understand the scale that this company operates on. Yes, they are responsible for creating and managing the software on nearly half of all online casinos, but they also create software that finds its way onto countless online sportsbooks, CFD trading platforms, and more.
For a long time, they owned a significant share in the share platform Plus500 and have also held shares in national lotteries and land-based casinos.
In 2017, their revenue was over $1 billion—not bad for a company that few gamers have heard of.
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Amaya
Amaya has been called the “biggest online gaming company in the world”, yet few have actually heard of them. This company was founded in Canada and grew off the back of the PokerStars platform, which they created. In the years since, they have splashed the cash to acquire many other gaming companies and to grow their stock.
In 2018 they purchased Sky Betting and Gaming for close to $5 billion, and in the years prior they splashed tens of billions to dominate the online poker scene and to take their brand offline. They employ nearly 2,000 people, they run some of the largest online betting sites in the world and they pretty much have a monopoly on online poker—all of which has helped them to become a colossus in the gaming sector.
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Ezra began his career as a DUI attorney, but soon left to explore other areas and now spends his time writing and managing multiple small businesses.
