LISTED IP-E Game Ventures Inc. has recently sealed a deal to become the Philippines’ exclusive distributor of games developed by US-based Blizzard Entertainment. Founded in the early 1990s, Blizzard Entertainment is behind popular videogames like Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo and the internet-based World of Warcraft.
In a filing to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Wednesday, IP e-Games said it signed a license and distribution agreement with Blizzard Entertainment International, a division of Coöperatie Activision Blizzard International U.A. based in the Netherlands, to sell Blizzard’s “boxed license products” in the Philippines.
Shares of IP e-Games closed higher by 1.5 percent to P26.50 each on Tuesday, after rising by as much as 4.4 percent earlier in the session.
IP e-Games did not provide details as to it plans to distribute the games. But the company has been making inroads in the retail gaming sector to become an “end-to-end” gaming company.
IP e-Games in April acquired a majority stake in Digital Paradise Inc., operator of the Netopia chain of Internet cafés. Digital Paradise at that time had 78 company-owned branches and 34 franchised stores and claims to serve 1.5 million customers daily. It separately signed an agreement to buy 75 percent of I.T. Log Park Inc., which operates a 32-branch internet café chain.
IP e-Games reported earlier that net income in the six months to June jumped to P36.29 million from P423,296 last year. It booked P198.21 million in revenues in the first semester, up 125 percent, mainly from service revenues from gaming and from operating its internet cafes. That figure included P7.73 million in advertising income, up from P731,649 in the same period last year,
IP e- Games saw active users rise 4.53 percent to 2.93 million in the first semester alongside an 18.46-percent increase in average daily concurrent users to 74,510.
IP e-Games was a subsidiary of technology firm IPVG Corp. before the latter underwent a corporate restructuring plan that saw the transfer of most of its assets and liabilities to a privately held company.
