By Meg Flippin Benzinga
DETROIT, MICHIGAN - March 11, 2025 (NEWMEDIAWIRE) - A lot has happened since Candy Crush and Angry Birds burst onto the scene. Today mobile gaming is a huge market with advertisers spending billions annually to reach players all over the world.
It makes sense that marketers have set their sights on this area of gaming. The number of mobile gaming players is projected to reach 2.4 billion by 2029. Meanwhile, the global mobile gaming market is forecast to be valued at $82.4 billion by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 11.3% over 2025-2029.
Free-to-Play Games All The Rage
Driving a lot of the growth is free-to-play mobile games in which game developers make money from ads that run within the games. It’s an audience advertisers are keen to reach and an area Core Gaming Inc., the soon-to-be-publicly-traded game developer and publisher, knows a thing or two about. After all, it’s its two-pronged approach that the company says sets it apart from rivals.
“We’ve developed and co-developed over 2,000 games and we also have a publishing network in which we help other game developers market their games,” says CEO Aitan Zacharin. “Outside of AppLovin Corp., it’s hard to pinpoint any one company that has a publishing platform as well as game development.”
Taking A Page From AppLovin
Undoubtedly, there are similarities between AppLovin and Core Games. For starters, they both not only develop games but also help other game developers monetize their offerings. They both generate revenue from several sources whether it’s fees from developers for using their platforms, ad revenue from games they develop or other revenue from software development and apps. And they are both in growth mode, organically and through bolt-on buys.
While AppLovin may eclipse Core Gaming from a revenue perspective, Core Gaming is in growth mode just like many of its larger rivals. The company has developed, published and marketed over 2,000 casual mobile games in over 140 countries, has 40 million monthly active users and has an extensive worldwide distribution platform which has led to over 600 million downloads. Like AppLovin, it leverages advanced technology – namely AI – to grow its business.
Core Gaming has developed cutting-edge AI tools using text, language, image and video models to achieve a 50% boost in content production, reducing production time by over 40% and significantly enhancing creative output and efficiency, reports the company. Based on its algorithms the company identifies a niche area of the mobile gaming market that’s underpenetrated and then creates games to fill that need. It also leverages AI to optimize its development process and speed up time to market. “It's a very good model,” says Zacharin. “It gives us a first-mover advantage and enables us to focus on gaming niches while keeping users engaged.”
It's All In The Valuation
Where AppLovin and Core Gaming differ is in terms of valuation. AppLovin, which trades on the Nasdaq, was a Nasdaq top performer in 2024, with shares appreciating over 700%. Even though the stock has fallen on tough times in 2025, it still trades at around $260 a share and has a market capitalization of around $87 billion. It’s a lofty share price that may keep some investors on the sidelines.
Core Gaming is different. The company generated approximately $80 million in revenue last year and is in growth mode but isn’t trading for hundreds of dollars per share yet. In fact, it isn’t even public yet, but it will be shortly. In late February, Core Gaming announced a reverse merger with Siyata Mobile Inc. (NASDAQ: SYTA), a global developer and vendor of Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC) handsets and accessories.
Under the terms of the deal, which values Core Gaming at $160 million, Siyata will issue common shares to the shareholders of Core Gaming. Legacy Siyata shareholders will own a minimum of 10% of the combined entity.
“If you extrapolate that number, the value of that 10% legacy shares should be worth over $16 million and with approximately 2 million shares currently outstanding, Siyata’s market capitalization is hovering around $5 million,” Zacharin told Benzinga.
Ready, Set, Grow
Zacharin, who will lead the combined company once the merger is complete, says offering that many shares to legacy shareholders is unique to this deal and is driven by a desire to show shareholders the companies are in it for the long haul.
“We believe $160 million is the floor and that the company will have a much higher valuation. We see huge upside and prefer to have shareholders that are committed to the company and this is the incentive for that,” says Zacharin.
Core Gaming is just scratching the surface of what it thinks it can do now that it's armed with a $160 million valuation, upcoming Nasdaq listing and firepower to make bolt-on and strategic buys once it’s operating as a publicly traded company. Investors looking for access to both sides of the mobile gaming market without the lofty price tag currently available in the market may want to watch out for the listing and take a closer look into this new entity.
Featured photo by Afif Ramdhasuma on Unsplash.
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This content was originally published on Benzinga. Read further disclosures here.
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