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Cell-first sport developer Scopely has achieved outstanding success with its hit title, Monopoly Go, which launched in April 2023.
In simply over a yr, the sport generated over $3 billion in income, cementing its place as a standout performer each for the studio and the broader cell gaming business.
Whereas Monopoly Go is a stand-out achievement, Scopely has seen success throughout a lot of its portfolio, together with titles similar to Yahtzee with Buddies, Marvel Strike Drive, Star Trek: Fleet Command, and the cross-platform title Stumble Guys, which boasts over 50 million month-to-month gamers.
As we start 2025, Scopely’s Co-CEOs Walter Driver and Javier Ferreira sat down with Pocketgamer.biz to replicate on 2024, Monopoly Go’s influence on the studio, and their imaginative and prescient for the longer term.
A yr of challenges and achievements
The video games business has confronted quite a few hurdles lately, and 2024 was no exception. From widespread layoffs to evolving market dynamics, together with privateness modifications and rising improvement prices, studios have needed to adapt. For Scopely, 2024 was a yr of “each successes and failures, together with many learnings,” in accordance with Driver.
“Having a long-term mindset is crucial to game-making,” he explains. “Our tradition is rooted in perseverance, which makes the yr’s outcomes so gratifying for our groups.”
Ferreira echoes this sentiment, highlighting key accomplishments, similar to surpassing 15 million hours of playtime, reaching one billion downloads, and reaching $10 billion in lifetime income as an organization. These milestones had been among the many causes Pocketgamer.biz named Scopely the primary Sport Maker in our High 50 listing for 2024, and why the business voted it Greatest Writer and Monopoly Go as Sport of the 12 months on the Pocket Gamer Cell Video games Awards 2024.
“This recognition from our friends is unbelievable for our groups,” says Ferreira. “This yr, we achieved key milestones that allowed us to pause and have a good time the journey that’s Scopely.”
The success of Monopoly Go and making milestones
One in all Scopely’s most notable achievements in 2024 was the continued success of Monopoly Go. The sport not solely grew to become essentially the most profitable cell sport launch of all time but additionally got here full circle because it impressed a bodily board sport model. The title additionally noticed a star-studded advert marketing campaign that includes Will Ferrell, Chris Pratt, Jason Momoa, and Keke Palmer.
“Monopoly Go has expanded our imaginative and prescient of what a sport expertise — particularly an informal one — will be.”
Javier Ferreira
“Monopoly Go has expanded our imaginative and prescient of what a sport expertise — particularly an informal one — will be,” says Ferreira.
“The journey to its success displays the dedication, conviction, and resilience of our workforce. One in all our core cultural tenets is to ‘iterate to greatness,’ which roots us in a must all the time study and pivot as wanted and have house for failure. That is the philosophy behind every thing we do.”
Ferreria emphasises the workforce’s long-term dedication to innovation and participant engagement in the course of the improvement journey of Monopoly Go.
“In dwell providers, our work isn’t executed,” he says.
“Greatness is a transferring goal to make sure we’re staying dedicated to our gamers’ expertise.”
Javier Ferreira
“Greatness is a transferring goal to make sure we’re staying dedicated to our gamers’ expertise. Monopoly Go is a product of this mindset.
“The sport’s seven-year journey to launch and subsequent deep engagement from gamers additional highlighted and solidified how essential it’s for our tradition tenets to drive our selections, as with out them, I’m undecided Monopoly Go would have made it to launch.”
Crafting experiences and leveraging IP
Scopely’s strategy to new tasks is centered on creating experiences that resonate emotionally with gamers. Ferreira explains that every one tasks start with a give attention to the viewers.
“Greenlighting a mission includes intensive exploration to uncover the ‘magic’ of a mission, guaranteeing that it meets our excessive requirements and delivers one thing actually particular for gamers,” he states.
When working with established mental properties — which the writer has intensive exprience in — Scopely prioritises staying true to the essence of the franchise whereas introducing recent parts for gamers. Ferreira cites Star Trek: Fleet Command for instance of a sport that captures the spirit of its supply materials whereas providing a deeply participating expertise that feels recent.
“Our partnership with Savvy has supplied us with a long-term mindset, enabling us to deliver new expertise and concepts into our rising ecosystem.”
Walter Driver
“Discovering the correct game-makers for the correct property, and subsequent sport style, can also be essential for an genuine and modern expertise,” he says. “We prioritise partnerships with manufacturers that share our imaginative and prescient, and construct a workforce that’s extraordinarily captivated with making that imaginative and prescient come to life.
“Our work with Hasbro is a good instance of a collaborative partnership with either side respecting the unique manufacturers together with having a want to increase them additional. As certainly one of our earliest companions, we’ve now created three reimagined experiences of their iconic properties.
“That belief and understanding of what makes a sport partnership work is what in the end led to the nice outputs of those video games.”
Strategic progress by way of partnerships and acquisitions
In 2023, the studio was acquired by Savvy Video games Group for $4.9 billion, marking one of many largest offers in gaming historical past. Regardless of the acquisition, Scopely has retained its independence below the Savvy umbrella.
“Our partnership with Savvy has supplied us with a long-term mindset, enabling us to deliver new expertise and concepts into our rising ecosystem,” says Driver. “What we shared after we signed the deal is strictly what has taken form, with Scopely working as an autonomous enterprise unit below Savvy.”
Driver states that M&A has been a key component of the Scopely technique. Having “accomplished billions of {dollars} of offers” over the previous few years, he says its “monitor report establishes us as a driving drive in a aggressive business”. One thing which the studio has acted upon lately with the acquisition of Good World’s Chengfeng Studio in a $34.5 million deal.
Waiting for 2025
As Scopely enters 2025, it’s poised for continued progress. The corporate’s chief income officer Tim O’Brien acknowledged only a few months in the past that it hopes to announce a “mega deal” this yr, probably for a franchise “doing hopefully a minimum of a billion {dollars} in income”. Driver and Ferreira didn’t elaborate on any specifics when requested.
With a strong M&A method, profitable partnerships with main IP holders, and a confirmed skill to rework beloved manufacturers into hit video games, the studio seems well-positioned for the longer term.
“We’re hyper-focused on our total dwell portfolio and have an formidable and extremely numerous in-development slate that can proceed to replicate our mission to encourage play,
each day,” concludes Ferreira.
“We need to hold pushing the boundaries of socially-driven, modern sport experiences.”
