A year after Scopely acquisition, gaming is different | Brian Ward interview

A year ago, Brian Ward, CEO of Savvy Games Group, schooled us all on what it meant to be ambitious in the game industry. Fueled by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and its wager on games, Savvy acquired Scopely, the mobile game publisher, for $4.9 billion.

Some thought that was too high a price. Then Scopely’s Monopoly Go mobile game took off, generating $2 billion in revenues in its first 10 months. A full year after the acquisition, I did an interview with Ward about the consequences of taking risks and being ambitious. Our talk came after I interviewed the co-CEO of Scopely — Walter Driver and Javier Ferreira — at our GamesBeat Summit 2024 event in May.