Savvy Games Group is set to acquire Scopely for $4.9 billion

A gaming and esports company affiliated with the Saudi government's Public Investment Fund, Savvy Games Group, has agreed to acquire mobile games studio Scopely for $4.9 billion through its Public Investment Fund. The Scopely company was founded in 2011 and is known for several popular mobile games including Yahtzee With Buddies, Star Trek Fleet Command, Marvel Strike Force, Stumble Guys, and Scrabble Go.

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The Los Angeles-based company was valued at $3.3 billion following the closing of a $340 million funding round in 2020, after raising a $3.3 billion investment round to date. With a number of notable acquisitions made over the past few years, Scopely has seen significant growth over the past few years. As a result of the acquisitions, Scopely acquired Disney's FoxNext Games in 2020 and Sony Pictures Entertainment's GSN Games in 2021 for a total of $1 billion.

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"It has been a longstanding admiration of ours for Scopely's ability to build loyal, engaged communities of players, and we look forward to achieving even greater success with them in the future," said Brian Ward, CEO of Savvy Games Group. "We, at Savvy Games Group, are committed to investing in and growing the global games community by inviting the best individuals to become part of our team."

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Scopely will operate under a new umbrella company known as Savvy, which in addition to ESL and Faceit has a host of other esports companies. With the help of co-CEOs Walter Driver and Javier Ferreira, the company will continue to be led by both of them.

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"As part of the Savvy Games Group portfolio, Scopely will continue to grow into one of the most diversified mobile-first games companies in the world," said Scopely co-CEO Javier Ferreira in a statement. "Despite the rapidly growing games industry, our technology platform, market-leading studio ecosystem, and world-class team have always enabled us to stay one step ahead of it, delivering long-lasting franchises that delight players around the world in the process. It will be a pleasure to work with Brian and the Savvy team to reimagine the future of play."

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Savvy says the acquisition, which is still subject to regulatory approval, will be a significant step forward in strengthening its ability to deliver new products to the gaming community worldwide. Moreover, Scopely's cross-platform approach will also be incorporated into the new acquisition to make the company's live services expertise available to new segments like PC, console, and others.

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In an earlier report this week, Bloomberg reported that the Saudi Arabian government was betting $38 billion on becoming the next hub for the video game industry and that Savvy Entertainment was looking to acquire and develop top-tier games in the near future.

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With this deal, the company has become the sixth largest acquirer in the history of video games based on price. Currently, Microsoft is in the process of completing a deal that will see Activision Blizzard purchased for $68.7 billion by Microsoft, and the top spot in this category goes to Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard, followed by Take-Two's acquisition of Zynga for $12.7 billion, Tencent's acquisition of Supercell for $8.6 billion, and Microsoft's acquisition of ZeniMax for $8.1 billion and Activision's acquisition of King for $5.9 billion.