Outfit7

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Outfit7
Industry	Games Mobile App
Founder	Samo Login Iza Login
Headquarters	Ljubljana (Slovenia)
Key People	Samo Login (co-founder) Andrej Nabergoj (former CEO) Xinyu Quian (current CEO)
Websites	outfit7.com talkingtomandfriends.com talkingtom.tv talkingtomandfriends.tv

Outfit7 (formerly known as Outfit 7 and OutFit 7) (also known as Outfit7 Limited) is a Slovenian company best known for its flagship entertainment brand Talking Tom & Friends. They were founded on October 1, 2009, and are currently owned by CEO and co-founder Samo Login. Outfit7 first created the Talking Tom Cat app in 2010.

Their main franchise, Talking Tom & Friends, is known for being one of the fastest entertainment app series to reach 300 million downloads; being achieved just around 19 months after its launch. The app franchise then went on to hit one billion downloads in June 2013. By February 2014, it was announced that the franchise had reached 1.5 billion downloads globally. Three years later, the app franchise had 4 billion downloads. In summary, Outfit7's Talking Tom & Friends apps have been downloaded in over 230 countries worldwide.

The Talking Tom & Friends apps have been praised for their successful combination of unique humor and self-expression. Users can tickle, poke, and talk to the 3D characters that also repeat the words back in their own voice. And, in the My Talking Tom app, fans can customize and care for their very own Talking Tom, along with follow-up apps like My Talking Angela.

As of now, Outfit7 has five animated series and 2 YouTube singles, and has become the biggest and most downloaded app franchise of the last decade.

History

Struggles

In 2009, Samo and Iza Login were Slovenian high school students who studied computer science in college, and decided to get into the business of apps. The two had saved over $250,000 while working for local IT companies, and legally changed their surname to match their career. Alongside six friends, they evaluated an office in Ljubljana. Their first few attempts were unsuccessful, having created a soccer app, a travel guide to Iceland, and a “wealth affirmation” tool that shared financial debuts.

Talking Tom & Friends

After several unsuccessful attempts, Samo Login, who was not entirely interested in making games due to competition, came up with the idea to create an app based around a character. Samo Login purchased a $90 feral cat model off the 3D-model website TurboSquid and handed the model to his developers, who coded the animations and the talkback feature, creating the app which would come to be known as Talking Tom Cat, which was published in June of 2010. Within 13 days, Talking Tom Cat reached one million downloads, and Outfit7 would immediately realize how and what made the success of this game, therefore spawning countless spin-offs. Within six months, Outfit7 had already raised 41 million downloads, and began plans for 100 million by the end of 2011. Within only another month, Outfit7 had now gained 60 million downloads. During this success, Samo Login retired his position as CEO and gave it over to Andrej Nabergoj.

By 2011, due to the rising popularity of the series, Outfit7 began looking at opportunities to bring the series to the mainstream via producing books, comics, television shows, and movies. Around that time, Outfit7 also began work on their next big project: Talking Gina the Giraffe, their second virtual toy game. Andrej Nabergoj described this as the "future of mobile toys, and toys in general", and claimed that Gina was designed to "give users the opportunity to connect with our characters on a much deeper level".

After Talking Gina, Outfit7 began naming their line-up "Talking Friends after early trademarks and interviews show different names such as Talking Animals. The logo originally featured an image of Talking Tom and Talking Gina. By then, Outfit7 then began to create more simplistic apps again. Not long after, Talking Tom Cat 2 and Talking Ben the Dog would release, which would end up being some of Outfit7's most popular apps ever. By the end of the year, Outfit7 had successfully gained 190 million monthly users, and their apps had received over 300 million downloads.

In 2012, Outfit7 had gained a lot more traction. They began hosting deals, promotional team-ups, and partnerships. Outfit7 signed deals with merchandising companies such as Dragon-I, ToyToyToy Ltd, and Disney Interactive to produce online television series based on Outfit7's characters. The final results ended up with Outfit7 opening their own official store, "Talking Shop", with the Talking Friends Superstars and Talk-Backs releasing on it. Along with this, Disney Interactive produced an online mini-series called Talking Friends.

In 2013, Outfit7 slowed down on releasing apps, in order to release their biggest app they've ever created, which was called My Talking Tom. After Talking Ginger 2, originally known as Ginger's Birthday, released in April, Outfit7 would remain silent until late that year. My Talking Tom released on 11 November 2013, and Talking Friends gained more popularity than ever before. My Talking Tom, similar to Pou and My Boo, was an advanced virtual pet system where you could raise your own Tom. Around that point, Outfit7 also began thinking of ways to rebrand the series.

Reboot

In 2014, Outfit7 reached two-billion downloads. To celebrate this, Outfit7 once again teamed up to announce another up-coming television series, Tom on the Road, as well as an upcoming movie. Unlike Talking Friends, this series would be full-length, and the series would once again star Tom and his friend group. In December of that year, the series was rebranded and rebooted into Talking Tom and Friends, and the Talking Tom and Friends television series released in time for Christmas. Afterwards, My Talking Angela was released to coincide with the new branding system. Outfit7 also began to delist games that no longer grew traction or received updates, including games such as Talking Gina the Giraffe. After 2014, no news on the new Talking Tom movie would come until 2018.

Acquisition by Chinese investors

Around 2016, Outfit7 began looking for a lucrative deal to sell their company. In January 2017, Outfit7 signed a deal with United Luck Consortium to sell their company. This was the case until later that same month, Samo Login and Iza Login were out together, and met up with two men from the Chinese company, Zhejiang Jinke Peroxide Company. The news of Outfit7 selling was not announced until press releases that said that Outfit7 had been sold to the United Luck Consortium for $1,000,000,000. However, four days later, another press release stated that United Luck had sold Outfit7 to Jinke Culture Technology Company. In 2018, Outfit7 changed their logo to match the current apps they develop.

Afterwards, Outfit7 started developing Chinese apps for the Jinke cooperation, and has developed hugely successful apps since, including games such as Talking Tom Gold Run. In 2018 My Talking Tom 2 released, which was their first huge release in three years. In 2019, Outfit7 closed their store, Talking Shop, which had previously been renamed to the Talking Tom and Friends Official Store. In 2021, My Talking Angela 2 was released.

Other Apps

Currently, Outfit7 has announced their plans to create apps and franchises other than Talking Tom. Outfit7 has currently released apps such as Mythic Legends and Swamp Attack 2 to form a newly formed company. As well as this, a Talking Tom movie is currently in the works with Marla Studios. Furthermore, a new Talking Tom & Friends 3-D animated series, Talking Tom Heroes: Suddenly Super is set to be releasing soon as well.