From Corporate Acquisition to Independent Rebirth: How Ludia Charted a New Course for Canadian Mobile Gaming

Ahead of the PGC Summit Montreal, which takes place during the Montreal International Games Studios (MIGS) event, the spotlight is turning sharply toward Canada’s games industry and one of its most resilient flagbearers. Ludia’s trajectory over the past few years mirrors a familiar narrative across the global mobile games landscape: a high-profile corporate acquisition followed by an industry-wide market correction, sweeping workforce reductions, and deep strategic soul-searching. Yet where Ludia’s story diverges from the typical corporate restructuring playbook is in its final chapter—one defined not by closure or continued downsizing, but by independence, renewed growth, and ambitions of regional dominance.

In early 2025, a dedicated syndicate of Canadian investors and senior management executed a buyout of the Montreal-based mobile studio from Jam City, returning the company to its independent roots. Now charting its own course once more, Ludia is actively hiring, expanding its development pipelines, and scanning the horizon for strategic studio acquisitions. To understand how the company navigated the turbulent post-pandemic mobile economy, we sat down with Ludia CEO Jimmy Gendron to discuss the hard-earned lessons of the lean years, the shifting dynamics of today’s mergers and acquisitions market, and the persistent structural gaps that leave Canada lacking a mobile publisher of true international scale.

Smaller, Sharper, and More Resilient

When mobile entertainment giant Jam City acquired Ludia for $165 million in late 2021, the studio was operating at a significantly larger scale, employing nearly 400 people. By the time the recent management buyout was finalized, the headcount had contracted to approximately 130 team members.

"Jam City acquired Ludia in late 2021, and the three years that followed were difficult for the entire gaming industry," explains CEO Jimmy Gendron. "Changes to privacy regulations on mobile platforms made user acquisition significantly harder and more expensive, while player engagement naturally normalized following the unprecedented surge seen during the Covid-19 pandemic."

Despite the broad economic headwinds and operational pressures, the studio’s bedrock survived intact. The core development teams responsible for enduring titles such as Jurassic World Alive, Jurassic World: The Game, and Dragons: Rise of Berk weathered the storm. Rather than sinking the studio, the forced contraction served as an unexpected catalyst for operational discipline.

"What we learned is that smaller teams are a powerful forcing function," Gendron notes. "Our teams became far more selective regarding where to invest capital across our three core game franchises, and ultimately proved far more resilient than larger, more bloated organizations had been."

Having successfully stabilized its operations, Ludia has firmly returned to a growth trajectory. Founded initially in 2007, the studio has generated over CAD $1.3 billion in lifetime gross revenue and accumulated more than 500 million downloads, cementing its status as Canada’s largest independent mobile game studio. Current headcount has climbed back up to approximately 190 staff members. Furthermore, original founder Alexandre Thabet has returned to the fold as chairman, reinforcing Gendron’s stated ambition—first articulated when the buyout agreement closed—to build the next leading independent mobile publisher based in Canada.

Going It Alone: Alignment and the Loss of the Corporate Cushion

The high-stakes buyout was made possible through the backing of a powerful consortium of Québec and Canadian financial institutions, including the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, Investissement Québec, BDC Capital, Export Development Canada, and Groupe W. According to Gendron, the most transformative change brought about by the transaction is the fundamental alignment it establishes between ownership, executive management, and frontline development teams.

"Independence gives us alignment across our investors, management, and teams," Gendron says. "Our investors have backed a vision to build a leading independent publisher in Canada. That alignment and support is what lets us commit capital to new games and acquisitions on a long horizon."

This philosophy directly informs how Ludia approaches potential studio acquisitions. Rather than viewing target companies merely through the lens of balance sheets or intellectual property portfolios, Gendron emphasizes human capital above all else. "A studio is its people," he states. "If they do not come out of a transaction with more conviction around what they are building, I think you have bought very little."

Operating independently does, however, introduce distinct operational challenges. Gendron openly acknowledges the inherent trade-offs of stepping away from a corporate parent. "What you give up as a relatively smaller independent publisher is the cushion," he admits. "In theory, a larger diversified parent company can absorb a launch that misses its targets or a soft year in a mature franchise; when you are on your own, you feel every one of those impacts directly."

Buying Into the Middle of the Market

This calculated independence heavily influences Ludia’s strategy within the current mergers and acquisitions landscape. While much of the wider gaming sector continues to exercise caution and cut back operations, Ludia is actively positioning itself to acquire stable, profitable mid-market studios.

"If you look at the M&A landscape, there are fewer buyers than there used to be," Gendron observes. "The largest publishers at the top of the market will always compete for the breakout successes, as we saw with Loom Games, but there is much less activity for strong studios in the middle of the market. That is where we see the opportunity for a company like ours."

According to Gendron, Ludia’s acquisition criteria are straightforward in theory yet exceptionally difficult to execute in practice. The primary focus remains the team: talented developers who possess an unwavering drive to create and manage live operations with strict discipline. From a business perspective, the studio looks for a proven game or compact portfolio boasting the foundational elements of a long-running franchise supported by a deeply loyal, multi-year community.

"We are not looking for scale at any price," he emphasizes. "We are looking for teams and games that are already strong and that can be stronger with Ludia behind them."

Canada’s Missing Piece in the Mobile Ecosystem

Reflecting on the broader geographic context, Gendron identifies two glaring structural gaps within Canada’s digital games landscape: a severe scarcity of mobile-focused studios and publishers operating at genuine global scale, and a comparatively thinner pipeline of agile indie teams iterating rapidly toward worldwide hits, contrasting sharply with hyper-productive hubs such as Türkiye.

"Canada’s games industry was built on console and PC platforms, and that is where its talent, educational institutions, and public attention still point," Gendron explains. "Mobile represents more than half of the global market, yet you can count the Canadian mobile studios of real scale on one hand."

While careful to avoid casting Ludia as a solitary savior for the entire national ecosystem, Gendron hopes the studio’s path can serve as a powerful proof-of-concept. "It is bigger than any single company. What I hope we can do is show that it is possible. If a Canadian-owned mobile publisher can reach real scale from Montreal, I hope this inspires others to follow."

The Science of Fantasy-Genre Fit

Having steered the Jurassic World intellectual property for over a decade, Gendron firmly rejects the notion that relying on licensed entertainment brands constitutes a strategic weakness or a creative shortcut.

"Partnering with a third-party IP is a risk if you treat it as a shortcut. It becomes a strength if you treat it as a craft," he asserts.

To mitigate creative risk, every prospective project at Ludia must pass a strict internal evaluation metric known as "fantasy-genre fit." This framework examines whether the core fantasy that a specific fandom desires to experience aligns harmoniously with the gameplay mechanics the development team intends to construct.

"Jurassic World: The Game works because the fantasy every fan of the films shares is building and running their own park, and that is exactly what the game lets you do," Gendron points out. "A great IP in the wrong genre fails, and a great mechanic with the wrong fandom struggles to find its audience."

Raising the Bar in a Post-Pandemic Market

When asked where the wider mobile games industry miscalculated over the preceding five years, Gendron evaluates the situation through a distinctly Western lens, noting that many Western publishers fundamentally underestimated the speed at which global development standards were escalating.

"During Covid, player engagement surged and the whole ecosystem, studios and publishers, scaled up as if that level was the new normal and as if the competitive landscape would stay the same," he explains. "Neither was true."

Simultaneously, competing international publishers—most notably from China—engineered significantly more data-driven operational models characterized by faster iteration cycles, rigorous live-ops management, and highly disciplined user acquisition strategies, ultimately capturing dominant positions across entire game genres.

Ludia’s strategic response to these market realities is twofold: relentlessly reinvesting in foundational capabilities surrounding live operations, performance analytics, and data-driven marketing, while simultaneously providing internal development teams with the creative autonomy required to build superior player experiences at a faster pace.

Back to Its Roots

This unwavering operational focus also explains why Ludia remains resolutely committed to the mobile sector while many industry peers pivot toward PC and console development. "Mobile is more than half of the global games market and it is where our expertise is," Gendron notes.

The return of Alexandre Thabet, who originally founded Ludia in 2007, powerfully ties the studio’s upcoming operational chapter back to its foundational origins.

"Alex founded Ludia on an idea that has held up remarkably well: take the fandoms people already belong to and build games that let them play for years and even decades," Gendron reflects.

He concludes with a clear vision for the company’s future: "Our ambition is to entertain millions of fans across several long-running game franchises and a company built to last well beyond the people running it today."

(For those interested in exploring how Ludia maintains player engagement across a decade-plus lifecycle, senior product manager Lucas Labordiere and game director Karl Dandan are scheduled to present insights during their session, "Live Ops Strategy: Managing a 10+ Year Old Successful Liveops Game," on the PGC stage at MIGS.)