Supercell will fully acquire Merce Mansion’s developer Metacore, with 160 staff reductions.

A Finnish top mobile game developer, Metacore, announced earlier that Supercell would acquire the company’s remaining shares, achieve full management and restructure the studio. Metacore stated that it had not been able to launch any new game, and had now refocused its business focus on its flagship wisdom Merge 2 game.

If the Metacore reorganization plan proceeded as expected, it was expected that 160 staff would be reduced in Finland. In addition, Metacore will be exposed to the risk of lay-offs in Sweden and Germany. According to the Metacore network of officials, the company currently has more than 280 employees and 160 staff reductions mean that more than half of the employees will be dismissed. Supercell will also include the Merge Mansion, a metacoré-style hand-shower under its flag, in its real-time game combination, and plans to acquire the remaining shares of Metacore. According to Metacore, Supercell had previously held a share of the company of 180 million euros and was one of its main shareholders.

When Ilkka Paananen, CEO of Supercell, spoke about the deal, he said: “The Metacore team created the first Merge 2 type game, to which I would like to pay deep tribute.” “I believe that Metacore is still behind us, with the experience of Supercell in reversing the decline and driving the global expansion of online games, together with our ability to operate and access them in real time, we can re-establish it as one of the same games.” As for the proposed workspace reorganization, Mika Tammenkoski, CEO of Metacore, added: “The discussions were very difficult. We have set up an ambitious growth organization, but we have not achieved growth as expected.” “Competition has intensified every year since we launched the Merge Mansion and became a pioneer of the Merge 2 game type. We need to make changes to remain competitive and to give Merge Mansion the greatest chance of success in the future.”

Metacore has tried over the past few years to run a number of new combination puzzles and has also tested for months a card game featuring Grandma from Merge Mansion. Metacore acquired Supercell’s cancelled pilot game, Everdale, in January 2023, which was intended to be restarted and reissued, but after 18 months the development was cancelled.