[Mobile Games] Scopely’s potential “megadeal”, Ubisoft shares fall and rise, and Wuthering Waves’ journey to $150m | Week in Views

[Dexter.]

 

The games industry moves quickly and while stories may come and go there are some that we just can't let go of…

So, to give those particularly thorny topics a further going over we've created a weekly digest where the members of the PocketGamer.biz team share their thoughts and go that little bit deeper on some of the more interesting things that have happened in mobile gaming in the past week.

Monopoly Go maker Scopely is gearing up for a “megadeal" acquisition next year. 

According to Mobilegamer.biz, the company's chief revenue officer, Tim O’Brien, shared the plans during a subscriber-only Q&A at Variety’s Entertainment & Technology Summit. 

“I hope that we announce at least one megadeal," said O'Brien when asked about the company's plans for 2025. 

“When I say megadeal, I mean a scaled global franchise doing hopefully at least a billion dollars in revenue.”

So who could that be? I love a bit of wild speculation.

We discussed this on the latest episode of the PocketGamer.biz Week in Mobile Games podcast (which will be released soon). With the aim to target a billion-dollar franchise, the pool of potential acquisitions reduces dramatically.

With the backing of Savvy Games Group, perhaps Scopely could be targeting a swoop for Turkey’s casual games giant Dream Games? The studio recently ranked fourth in our Top 50 Mobile Game Makers 2024 list thanks to its runaway hit Royal Match. The title took over Candy Crush Saga this year as the world’s biggest match-three game. Next month it aims to release the follow-up: Royal Kingdom.

A deal for Dream Games - with its mega-hit and potential for growth from a new title - would meet the criteria O’Brien set out. It would represent another exit for Turkey’s major mobile studios, with Gram Games, Peak Games and Rollic all snapped up by Zynga.

To speculate even more wildly - perhaps Scopely and Savvy could be looking at Homescapes and Gardenscapes developer Playrix? Perhaps Moon Active with its Monopoly Go rival Coin Master and growing portfolio in other genres like merge? Maybe Playtika, which prior to its purchase of SuperPlay for $1.95 billion, was looking for a sale not too long ago.

The M&A train continues.

https://www.pocketgamer.biz/scopelys-potential-megadeal-ubisoft-shares-fall-and-rise-and-wuthering-waves-journey-to-150m-week-in-views/