Newsletter 
If you play games on your Android devices at all, you’re almost certainly familiar with Glu Mobile. They have tons of licensed games under their belt like Hercules, Terminator Genisys and Mission Impossible RogueNation, as well as original properties like Blood & Glory, Frontline Commando and Contract Killer, among many others. Some readers may also be familiar with Plain Vanilla Games’ QuizUp, an app that started as a simple trivia game and wound up turning into a full-blown social network, as well as netting a total of $27 million in capital funding. That figure jumped up to $34.5 million after a pretty staggering $7.5 million donation from Glu Mobile, with the option to buy them out later for an as-yet undisclosed sum.
The sudden interest is because QuizUp has scored a deal with NBC to begin not only shaping content for the app around NBC shows, but also to do things the other way around; NBC hopes to have QuizUp’s help in making a TV show. Naturally, after receiving such a significant chunk of change, QuizUp is willing to let Glu help with this effort. ITV has also swooped in on the QuizUp craze, but QuizUp and Glu will apparently be giving NBC priority. NBC hopes to have their show on the air some time before the end of the year although no timeline has yet been given for ITV’s version. It wasn’t stated whether the funding from Glu and related business, or a future buyout if there is one, will affect these TV deals. Although wildly popular, the app has thus far slumped in the area of monetization, thus Glu’s choice to hold off on buying them up at the moment. Glu’s CEO, Niccolo de Masi, said that “Glu is looking to consolidate once our partnership proves out the monetization capability of the QuizUp audience and app…”
QuizUp has over 5 billion games under their belt from over 31 million registered users, along with unregistered guests. The Icelandic firm has garnered a fairly insane number of regular users for having only been around since 2013, with Android support in 2014 and availability on Windows last year. 20 million of those registered users had actually jumped on board within the first year of availability. QuizUp has, on top of the funding they’ve garnered, managed to score licensing deals with tons of hot IPs, including Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. The future for QuizUp looks pretty great and it seems that Glu is coming along for the ride.