Wicket Gaming provides status update

Eric de Basso, CEO of Wicket Gaming, provides a status update on the consolidation of the Wegesrand Group, the ongoing restructuring of Wicket Gaming and the global rollout of Cricket Manager Pro 2022.

Consolidation of the Wegesrand Group

On October 5, 2022, we ultimately acquired the German group Wegesrand. In connection with this, work was initiated to consolidate and restructure the entire Wicket Gaming group. The work is very demanding and is still ongoing, all resources are involved in order to enable a quick and efficient consolidation.

A particular focus in this work has been a careful inventory of resources within the entire group. Above all, this takes place against the background of our previously stated ambition to ensure a movement of development resources for Cricket Manager Pro, from external consultants to our own developers within the subsidiary Linked Dimension. We have slowly but surely started moving Cricket Manager Pro over to our own in-house resources. Getting our product "home" is and has been the highest priority in recent months.

As the acquisition of Wegesrand was carried out during Q4, the entire consolidation will be visible in our Q4 report in 2023. From August 2022 until today's date, our subsidiary group has delivered orders with a value of approximately SEK 10 million. This is completely in line with our forecasts.  Wegesrand generates steady revenue for the group and expects to win further orders in the future. The company is today setting the tone on the continent in the Playful Learning and Serious Games segments.

Wicket Gaming is now a group consisting of high-performing subsidiaries that have created a strong presence in the edtech segment. According to Grand View Research, the market for edtech today is approximately $127 billion and is expected to grow to approximately $430 billion by 2030.

Edtech aims at the production and use of content and technologies in order to improve and support educational processes, this is also referred to as Educational Technology.  Edtech uses educational software in educational environments aimed at children, young people and adults.

“Within the edtech segment, in 2023 we intend to increase the customer base by investing in our sales organization.  Through this investment, we expect a marked increase in revenue for both existing and new projects. Furthermore, we aim to strengthen our internal capacity in order to increase efficiency and flexibility in order to reach a higher degree of profitability. We can therefore expect significant growth in the edtech segment at Wicket Gaming in the coming years," says Thorsten Unger, CEO of Wegesrand.

Wegesrand is the first acquisition that Wicket Gaming has completed, with this we want to be clear that it is not the last.  At the same time, we are aware that the market is not completely optimal for acquisitions, but we monitor the situation and continuously work with our list of desired acquisition objects. We intend to strike when the market allows us.

Cricket Manager Pro

We are fully aware that the journey took longer than expected, but with a war in Europe, and a new global economic reality, it is not entirely unreasonable that we as game developers are also affected. We have had to reallocate resources from Ukraine to Germany (Wegesrand) at short notice and this in the middle of an ongoing game development process. Moving knowledge requires both time and resources, but we made a strategic decision that it had to happen even though it would affect our set time frames for launch.

Over the past six weeks, a major server update has been carried out to increase the scalability of Cricket Manager Pro. This was a necessity, especially after we received initial data regarding the game's launch in the Indian market.

After the update, we quickly saw an increased improvement in retention (proportion of players returning to the game) and user ratings. These positive effects have been particularly evident in India. Furthermore, the game has undergone several data-driven updates, with a focus on increasing retention as well as monetization (how much is spent by the players inside the game).

The updates made in the last four weeks have been the direct reason why our rating numbers have increased significantly, this is a receipt that we have chosen the right path to achieve success with Cricket Manager Pro. Through the work of cricket legend Jonty Rhodes and ongoing feedback, we ensure that the feeling of cricket develops steadily in the game.

In the case of our cricket stars, the intention is to use them in the marketing at the absolute most favorable time. In our opinion, that is when we land at the right rating level. Worth noting is that they have already received compensation for their upcoming marketing efforts. The purpose of using our stars at the right moment aims to maximize the number of downloads. Our ambition is to push in a new data-driven update every week that is in line with user expectations.

For everyone in Sweden who has not yet downloaded Cricket Manager Pro, we just want to remind you that we have opened up Sweden and that the game can be downloaded. Take this opportunity and join over 600,000 people who have already downloaded the game worldwide - test your cricket skills or take the opportunity to learn cricket.

Cricket Manager Pro link to Google Play store:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wicketgaming.cricketmanager&hl=en&gl=US

Cricket Manager Pro App Store Link:

https://apps.apple.com/in/app/cricket-manager-pro-2022/id1631795331f

For further information, please contact:

Eric de Basso, CEO, Wicket Gaming AB
E-mail: eric@wicketgaming.com  
Phone: +46 70 780 52 00

About Wicket Gaming

Wicket Gaming is a Swedish game development company founded in 2015. The company's business concept is based on developing and distributing so-called free-to-play games in the sports genre based on proprietary brands. Since its inception, the Company has worked to develop its first title, Cricket Manager, which is a manager game in cricket for mobile devices that aims to create and own its own cricket club and compete against other players around the world. The goal is to create one of the world's most popular cricket manager games for mobile devices and to use a technical platform to broaden the game portfolio to include other sports manager games.

For more information, see Wicket Gaming's website www.wicketgaming.com