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.

Ward said his company, which is also a holding company for the ESL Face-It Group esports property, has a duty to help Scopely operate freely and independently. I talked with Ward about a variety of subjects; he said the kingdom is going through enormous cultural change with gaming leading the way. But we also talked about the issue of LGBTQ+ people and their rights in the kingdom, where perhaps many people feel change isn’t happening fast enough. As the Esports World Cup is taking place this summer in Riyadh, the spotlight around reputational issues will fall upon the kingdom again.

Today is the anniversary of the Savvy’s acquisition of Scopely, which toiled on its hit game Monopoly Go for seven years. Now it has a considerable war chest to grow — on top of the war chest that Savvy has to acquire more companies in gaming. We’ll see over time if this means that Savvy and its bullet train will be unstoppable.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: We have the one-year anniversary here. Time is flying.

Ward: Next Friday, yeah, the official one-year anniversary of close.

GamesBeat: What’s on your mind with that coming up?

Ward: In relation to Scopely? We’re just so grateful that the company itself has done so well. Monopoly Go in particular continues to defy gravity and do super well. But not just that. Stumble Guys has done well on Xbox and PlayStation. It’s coming to Switch. All of how we work together as a larger organization has been concluded. Everyone is very happy with that. The employees, I’m told–basically Savvy is almost invisible to them, which means we’re doing our job in keeping them independent and autonomous. That employee sentiment, that we’re not in the way, I’m really happy about.

GamesBeat: Do you have any new numbers since the $2 billion was released?

Ward: I don’t think they’ve publicly announced anything yet. We rely on them to make those announcements. It continues on a very similar trajectory, though.

GamesBeat: What comes to mind about the state of the industry in general, and Scopely’s place in it?

Ward: I understand from a lot of our banker friends that things are picking up in the industry. There are more opportunities for securing funding, and even IPOs. We saw this week that EQT and various other partners are closing in on their deal with Keywords, which is encouraging. Sector activity seems to be picking up.

My general thought is that everybody has right-sized towards demand, following over-indexing after COVID. That problem has resolved itself. With Scopely now a year post-combining with us, and more than a year into Monopoly Go, we have a great M&A team and corporate development team. We hope that they will continue to do what they’ve done well in finding other great products and teams and studios to add to the portfolio.

GamesBeat: How does some of that work in terms of your structure? If they’re generating a lot of the revenue, does that mean that their ambition for M&A can grow? Can Savvy itself also grow that whole ambition on a larger scale for acquisitions that Scopely itself might have?

Ward: In terms of Savvy, we’re focused on capital deployment primarily through the lens of Scopely. We hope that they will continue their great track record of finding great products and teams to invest in. This is our main job as Savvy in relation to Scopely, to be that long-term strategic capital partner and fuel that growth. That growth might be larger. They might be looking at larger opportunities than they would have five or 10 years ago.

GamesBeat: People have recently interpreted that as suggesting more emphasis on mobile and less on esports.

Ward: I wouldn’t say that. Our three strategic pillars remain the same: game development and publishing, esports, and building Saudi Arabia into a global games hub. It happened that in the first year following ESL Faceit, most of our opportunities and capital deployment were focused on esports. We didn’t do anything in games in the first year. The second year we did focus on games. We were lucky to be able to acquire Scopely. But that doesn’t indicate a preference of one over the other.

In terms of future capital deployment there might be more opportunities in game development and publishing than there might be in esports. We have about a 40% market share already in esports. But there will be other opportunities in esports on the technology side, in the digital platforms for example.

GamesBeat: How would you describe the state of the esports market? The World Cup is coming. People are very excited about that. What different trajectory does esports have compared to, say, mobile?

Ward: I don’t know if it’s different from mobile. The esports landscape is pretty exciting right now. The World Cup kicked off three days ago. That’s by far the biggest esports tournament the world has ever seen. We’re excited to be the operator for that. After three days, so far so good. We’re looking at the possibility of the esports Olympics. That’s been announced. There are some big, big developments in the esports ecosystem in terms of tournaments and opportunities for players to compete and for fans to watch, different types of tournaments from the traditional ones.

From our point of view at Savvy, these things have given us, as ESL Faceit Group and Savvy, the opportunity to reach longer-term agreements with publishers, sponsors, and advertisers. People see capital coming into esports as a signal that it’s less volatile. There’s more of a long-term future that justifies longer-term agreements. That’s good for everyone.

GamesBeat: With the Saudi Arabia connection people are still concerned about things like sportswashing and the LGBTQ community, how they may be accepted into this. You’ve said before that you’ve been astounded by the pace of change in the reality of the country. How do you feel about those lingering concerns?

Ward: The lingering concerns are understandable. It takes a while for people to grasp the pace of change that’s underway, especially if they haven’t had the opportunity to visit and see it firsthand in some fashion. Everybody, without exception, that I know or have talked to who’s been to the Kingdom has had the same experience, which is astonishment at the pace of change. Rome wasn’t built in a day. This is a journey. But it’s a journey at the speed of a bullet train.

The organizers of the World Cup and all the associated entities have gone to great lengths to assure all players, casters, participants, visitors and so forth that everyone is welcome in the Kingdom. One of the teams is wearing their pride jerseys next week in competition. Definitely, progress is being made.

GamesBeat: What about on the front of creating jobs in Saudi Arabia itself, part of the long-term goal to offset dependence on oil? Buying Scopely creates a capital opportunity, but not necessarily jobs on the ground. How do you feel about helping with that goal?

Ward: That’s a major focus for me personally this year, and for a lot of our leadership team in Saudi. Because we focused for the first year on a lot of transactions, and a lot of those transactions were esports-related, and then last year we had Scopely, which was big for us–it was actually the biggest acquisition the PIF made in 2023. This year we’re focusing hard on the KSA ecosystem-building aspect. As you know, these global hubs don’t pop up overnight. They take years to develop.

We’re focused on three things. One is working with other entities in the Kingdom, mostly government ministries, to ensure that the right sorts of financial incentives are available for foreign investment. We want to attract big companies to bring leadership to the Kingdom and to the region, to establish studios and other entities. Prince Faisal, who’s our vice-chair, and I have spent three weeks this year in China, Korea, and Japan talking to all the big companies in that region about the opportunities and what’s under way, about these sorts of programs that can invite companies to come there and consider serving this market that has 288 million gamers in it.

The second thing is incubation and acceleration programs, to make sure that local Saudi entrepreneurs have the support to start something. And the third is training and development. Developing the right skills in the population so they can take these jobs. You obviously can’t take someone out of high school and make them an executive producer. This is our major focus this year, under the national strategy, to get everyone singing off the same song sheet and working toward the same set of objectives.

GamesBeat: Does the location of the esports events help with that?

Ward: I think it does. Having the esports events, like GAMERS8 in the past and the World Cup this summer, it helps in a couple of ways. First, it brings a lot of people to the Kingdom. There were more than 2 million visitors to GAMERS8 last year. Not all of those were international, but a good 18% of them were. It helps people understand what’s going on, what’s the opportunity. They start asking what they can do to help further the momentum behind the sector and help the sector, not just in KSA but globally.

These local events also help educate the stakeholders, the government ministries and other people in the Kingdom, who don’t have experience with our sector – games, esports, or even entertainment – to figure out what’s needed to grow the sector, what the industry really needs. They have the opportunity to meet people who come to these events who can help educate them as to what’s required.

GamesBeat: You have another conference happening alongside the finals of the World Cup.

Ward: That’s going to be a really good one this year. Everybody who’s important is going to be there. It’s going to be a combination of the forum after GAMERS8 last year and the announcement the crown prince made about the World Cup.

GamesBeat: Scopely is the one with the outsized returns and cash now. Do they have any plan to invest in the local workforce in Saudi Arabia?

Ward: It’s too early to say. But there have been discussions around this. Hopefully in due course we’ll talk about that.

GamesBeat: For now it does seem like training people who are already there is the best way to get these results, to get more people working in the industry.

Ward: You can only bring in so many expats. You need leadership. In some cases these companies have done this over and over in new jurisdictions. Ubisoft was always good at this. But you can only bring in so many expats. We’re not trying to build an ecosystem full of expats. We’re trying to build an ecosystem that provides jobs for Saudi. Even though 70% of the population is under 35 and 67% identify as gamers, which is a super high percentage, they don’t have work experience in our sector. They need skills and training, both vocational programs and academic programs, to help them come up the curve in game design and all sorts of technical skills.

GamesBeat: As far as mobile goes, does it feel like the right time to invest? Do you think you’ll be able to do another big deal?

Ward: I’m not looking forward to the hamster wheel that kind of thing brings. But our mission is to grow, obviously. We still have capital to deploy. Hopefully Scopely, with their excellent track record and knowledge of the mobile-first cross-platform free-to-play space, will find some other great teams that are interested in joining us. It’s a good time to be looking.

GamesBeat: With layoffs across the game industry, do you see hope that will end soon? Is there hope that we’ll see more hiring than firing this year?

Ward: I think that’s mostly behind us, and I hope that’s mostly behind us. A few things are outside of everyone’s control. There was a bit of over-indexing on COVID demand, expecting that to continue when it didn’t, and other macroeconomic factors. But hopefully everyone has adjusted towards demand and moved beyond a restructuring phase. The fact that private equity is sniffing around and making investments, that there’s more capital coming into the sector, indicates that maybe we’ve bottomed out on that aspect and we’re heading towards an upswing.

GamesBeat: Are there sectors within games that you expect to lead growth in the business?

Ward: I don’t think my answer would be any different today than it might have been a year or two ago. I was astonished when we did research around this over the last couple of years. Having been in this business for 28 years now, coming from the traditional console and PC space, seeing how much the free-to-play business model invented by the mobile guys has eaten the traditional model, and the pace at which it continues to grow–despite IDFA and other bumps in the road on the mobile side over the last couple of years, we expect mobile to continue to dominate. Especially when you look at other markets. Of course everyone talks about MENA, but there’s also sub-Saharan Africa. That’ll be a huge market eventually, and definitely mobile-first.

GamesBeat: What are things like when you’re managing upward yourself? Should Saudi Arabia continue to expect to put $38 billion into the game industry? Should they increase or decrease that, given how things have changed in the game industry since that commitment was made?

Ward: Well, managing upward for me is a pure joy on a daily basis. I can confirm that. I’m making a bit of a joke, obviously, but seriously, the PIF and our board have been tremendously supportive, giving us the opportunity to operate like a real game company. Coming from a background where this is a completely unfamiliar sector, they’ve been amazingly supportive in grasping how this industry is different not just from traditional industrial sectors, but from other aspects of entertainment.

In terms of the number, I don’t think it’s really about the number. There’s a national strategy for games and esports in the Kingdom, the only country that has such. It has 86 objectives. It’s more about how we achieve those objectives as a country, less about what the appropriate capital deployment should be.

GamesBeat: Does it feel like there has to be peace in the world to hit those expectations or targets?

Ward: World peace would be helpful. Let’s face it. Not just to the games industry but across a bunch of other things. I’m conscious of the fact that–first of all, there’s been a business aspect to some of this. I don’t mean to put that first. There’s been a lot of human suffering as a result of these conflicts, and a lot of displacement of people, both in employment and otherwise, which is regrettable and unfortunate. But from a business perspective, for example, the war in Ukraine affected our business. It’s not my job to comment on geopolitical issues, but it would be very beneficial–we’re looking for great teams and great people to work with anywhere we can find them, and markets to serve. To the extent that some of these conflicts reaching a resolution would enable us to work with more people in the affected areas, we’d be very happy.

GamesBeat: You would hope that games could be a vehicle for peace.

Ward: I know you subscribe to this. We’ve talked about it. We all talk about games as a force for good. It’s not just entertainment. Games do play a meaningful role in people’s health, social well-being, education, and so forth. More broadly speaking, our industry does have a part to play in bringing people together.

GamesBeat: When you look at expectations across Savvy and among the stakeholders here, how do you manage expectations after a big success like Monopoly Go?

Ward: Well, first and foremost, it was very important to emphasize that doubling the company every six months is not an expectation the stakeholders should have. Something like Monopoly Go is a bit of a unicorn. We should be very grateful that not only was it a great game, but it was a game made on the back of a well-known IP that’s been around for decades. That certainly helped. We should double down on supporting the teams who create these products and be the best partner possible and get out of the way of them achieving continued growth in these franchises – not just Monopoly Go, but the other franchises – as well as in finding new opportunities.

GamesBeat: Hopefully it’s not another seven years before the next one comes along.

Ward: Hopefully not! This is one of the big reasons why a lot of companies in our industry have been built inorganically, as well as some organic growth. Finding other great teams who are on that seven-year journey, or three years or 10 years or whatever, is super important.

GamesBeat: Are you still around 3,800 people?

Ward: Yeah, it’s around 3,800 people. Around 2,300 in Scopely, another 1,300 in EFG, and then a couple hundred in Saudi.