Machine Zone

Machine Zone was one of the biggest Palo Alto startup stories of the 2010s, even if most people knew it only through its television ads. The company made Game of War: Fire Age and Mobile Strike, mobile strategy games that both ranked among the ten highest grossing mobile games at the same time. It spent heavily on marketing with Kate Upton, Mariah Carey and Arnold Schwarzenegger. At its peak a funding round valued it at $5 billion.

The story did not end with a public listing. Machine Zone, by then called MZ, was bought by AppLovin in 2020. AppLovin moved its own headquarters into MZ's Palo Alto office. In 2025 AppLovin sold its games business, MZ included, to Tripledot Studios. This page covers that arc.

What Machine Zone made

Machine Zone built free-to-play strategy games for phones. Players build up a city or base, train armies and join alliances with other players around the world. The games are free to download. Money comes from players who buy items that speed up progress.

Its biggest titles were:

• Game of War: Fire Age, a fantasy strategy game first released in October 2012 in New Zealand and Australia.
• Mobile Strike, a modern military game launched in November 2015.
• Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire, built through a subsidiary under a 2016 partnership with Square Enix and released in June 2017.
• World War Rising, released in 2018.

Behind the games was a large real-time messaging system. It let players in different countries chat inside alliances, with live translation between languages. That technology later became the basis for a separate platform business.

From Addmired to Machine Zone

The company began in 2008 as Addmired. Gabriel Leydon founded it with partners Mike Sherrill and Halbert Nakagawa, who became chief technology officer. Addmired took part in Y Combinator's Winter 2008 program. Our page on accelerators and incubators covers YC and similar programs.

Addmired's first products were AddHer and AddHim, a pair of MySpace widgets that TechCrunch compared to Hot or Not. The team then turned to free-to-play games and released 13 of them between 2009 and 2012, including iMob and Global War Riot.

In March 2012 Addmired raised $8 million from Menlo Ventures and changed its name to Machine Zone. Leydon used the money to bet the company on one large project. He put a team of about 80 people on an 18-month build of Game of War, according to VentureBeat.

The advertising years

Game of War became famous for its marketing. The company spent about $40 million marketing it in 2014. Television spots featured Kate Upton as the goddess Athena and aired during NFL games and Super Bowl broadcasts. Mariah Carey replaced Upton in the campaign in late 2015.

Mobile Strike went bigger. Its ads starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. In February 2016 the company spent an estimated $10.7 million on 3,265 airings of its Super Bowl 50 ad, about three times more on television than any other mobile game company that month.

VentureBeat reported in October 2015 that the company had about 550 employees. A 2016 funding round valued it at $5 billion. In October 2018 TechCrunch ranked it the sixth most successful company to come out of Y Combinator.

MZ and the turn back to games

In April 2016 Machine Zone rebranded as MZ. Its press release, datelined Palo Alto, announced a platform service built on the real-time network behind its games. The company showed a system for New Zealand that tracked public transportation down to the second.

That direction did not last. In June 2018 the board replaced Leydon as chief executive to refocus the company on games. Kristen Dumont, an attorney who had been chief operating officer since 2015, took over. A restructuring in July 2018 cut about 125 marketing jobs. Dumont later told Fast Company that television advertising was hard to measure, signaling an end to the Super Bowl spending.

In December 2018 the Silicon Valley Business Journal described MZ as "the Palo Alto unicorn behind Game of War" when it reported the hiring of a new chief financial officer.

AppLovin and Page Mill Road

AppLovin, a mobile app marketing and games company, announced in May 2020 that it was buying Machine Zone. Terms were not disclosed. Marketing Dive reported that the combined company would have almost 800 employees and that AppLovin would move its headquarters to Machine Zone's office in Palo Alto. MZ's games had generated about $5 billion from more than 310 million downloads, according to Sensor Tower data cited in the coverage.

AppLovin's annual report for 2025 lists its principal executive offices at 1100 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto. Page Mill Road is the main spine of Stanford Research Park, which our research park guide explains. We could not confirm from a primary source that 1100 Page Mill Road is the same building MZ occupied before the deal, so we treat that link as unconfirmed.

On June 30, 2025, AppLovin completed the sale of its mobile gaming business to Tripledot Studios. Its press release, datelined Palo Alto, listed ten studios in the deal, Machine Zone among them. AppLovin received $400 million in cash, subject to adjustments, plus equity equal to about 20 percent of Tripledot. AppLovin kept its Palo Alto headquarters and its advertising business.

Machine Zone's place in the local ecosystem

Machine Zone is the best known mobile game company to come out of Palo Alto. Most people link the city with hardware and enterprise software. For several years one of its best known private companies made games instead. It also shows how deals reshape the map. The company was bought by a firm that then moved its own headquarters to Palo Alto. That firm, AppLovin, reported 876 full-time employees worldwide at the end of 2025 in its annual report.

For job seekers in games and ad tech, our guide to finding a tech job in Palo Alto covers how local hiring works. Our Silicon Valley history places companies like MZ in the longer story.

Visiting notes

Machine Zone timeline

More company histories are on our Palo Alto companies hub.

Frequently asked questions