Popcore
AcquiredFounded 2018 · 17 employees on LinkedIn · 1 known investors
Popcore develops and grows free-to-play mobile games without paywalls, distributed on the App Store and Google Play. Its portfolio includes casual puzzle and hidden-object titles aimed at a broad global audience.
Also known as Popcore Games · Popcore GmbH
Investors · 1
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Popcore is a Berlin-based mobile games developer and publisher that creates free-to-play titles designed to work without paywalls and across language and sociodemographic barriers. Its portfolio includes Parking Jam 3D, Scavenger Hunt, Pull the Pin, Tap Away 3D, Sandwich!, Clash of Blocks! and Connect the Pops, distributed on the App Store and Google Play. The company reports more than 800 million installs, a team of over 60 people spanning more than 20 nationalities, with headquarters in Berlin and staff distributed across Europe.
The company operates end-to-end across game ideation, validation, development, live operations and in-house publishing, using its own game architecture and a custom technology stack intended to speed up the creation, scaling and maintenance of titles. It also produces and tests marketing creatives and runs its own user-acquisition campaigns. Popcore characterises its development method as "lean creativity": a prototyping-led approach based on rapid experimentation and data on user sentiment and behaviour, intended to reduce wasted creative resources when searching for hit titles.
In November 2022, Zynga's subsidiary Rollic closed an acquisition of Popcore, positioning the studio within the Take-Two/Zynga/Rollic group. Popcore is also a partner of GamesForest Club as part of stated efforts to reduce its CO2 footprint and become climate neutral.
Business model
Popcore develops and publishes free-to-play mobile games distributed through the App Store and Google Play. Its titles are offered without paywalls, and the company describes its titles as ad-driven, free-to-play mobile games. The company is fully integrated, covering ideation, validation, game development, live operations and in-house publishing, and it also produces creatives and manages its own user-acquisition marketing campaigns.
Titles are free-to-play with no paywalls; the co-founder describes the company's titles as ad-driven, free-to-play mobile games.
Traction
The company reports more than 800 million installs across its games and a portfolio of seven titles listed on its site. Press coverage notes that many of the games Popcore published reached #1 on the download charts.
Latest developments
Since Rollic's November 2022 acquisition, Popcore describes itself as part of the Take-Two/Zynga/Rollic group. Company materials dated 2025 cite more than 800 million installs and a team of over 60 people, and note a partnership with GamesForest Club tied to reducing its CO2 footprint.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Popcore describes itself as one of the fastest growing independent mobile games developers, operating in the hypercasual and casual mobile segments; press coverage characterises it as a hypercasual games studio whose published titles have frequently reached #1 on download charts. Since 2022 it has been part of the Rollic/Zynga/Take-Two group.
Popcore attributes its results to a prototyping-driven methodology it calls "lean creativity", combining rapid experimentation with data on user sentiment and behaviour to identify titles with both mass appeal and long-term engagement, plus a proprietary game architecture and custom tech stack for creating, scaling and maintaining games. Its games are positioned as free-to-play without paywalls, balancing the accessibility of hyper-casual play with the lasting engagement of casual gaming.
Technology
Popcore uses its own game architecture and a custom-built technology stack to accelerate the creation, scaling and maintenance of its games, alongside data analytics used to test and iterate on titles and to inform prototyping decisions.
Go-to-market
Games are published in-house and distributed through the App Store and Google Play. Popcore produces and tests its own marketing creatives and manages user-acquisition campaigns internally to grow its audience.
A broad global consumer audience of mobile players, targeted across language barriers and sociodemographic backgrounds.
Geography
Headquarters in Berlin, Germany, with a team distributed across Europe representing more than 20 nationalities. Games are distributed globally via the App Store and Google Play.
History
The Berlin-headquartered studio built a portfolio of hypercasual and casual mobile titles, several of which reached the top of app download charts. On 17 November 2022, Zynga announced that its subsidiary Rollic had closed the acquisition of Popcore; financial terms were not disclosed. The company describes itself as part of the Take-Two/Zynga/Rollic group and continues to operate under the Popcore GmbH name.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 1
launches, deals, and filingsZynga announced that its subsidiary Rollic had closed the acquisition of Berlin-based hypercasual games studio Popcore. Financial terms were not disclosed. Rollic CEO Burak Vardal and Popcore co-founder Johannes Heinze commented on combining Popcore's ad-driven free-to-play titles with Rollic's marketing and Zynga's live-services experience.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Popcorepopcore.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Popcore do?
- Berlin-based developer of free-to-play mobile puzzle and hypercasual games, acquired by Zynga's Rollic in 2022.
- Who are Popcore's investors?
- Popcore's investors include Makers Fund.