Sony Footage Leisure will promote its online game studio GSN Video games to the cell gaming agency Scopely in a deal valued at $1 billion.
The deal, which is a 50/50 combine of money and Scopely inventory, will make Sony a major minority shareholder within the gaming firm. GSN CEO Mark Feldman will proceed to supervise GSN Video games beneath the Scopely umbrella
GSN Video games had been part of Recreation Present Community, which Sony took management of in 2019. It develops cell and on-line on line casino video games based mostly on solitaire, poker, bingo and different video games. It additionally produced a Wheel of Fortune-themed slots recreation (Wheel of Fortune can also be owned by Sony).
Sony, in fact, is already within the online game enterprise, largely by its Sony Interactive Leisure division, which owns numerous recreation studios that largely create content material for the PlayStation platform. GSN video games, with its concentrate on cell and casino-themed fare, didn’t fairly in with that bigger gaming technique.
Scopely, in the meantime, has seen fast progress, elevating greater than $500 million final 12 months from traders like Peter Chernin’s The Chernin Group, the Newhouse household’s Advance, and personal fairness agency TSG.
It has used that funding to finance important acquisitions. Final 12 months it acquired the studio PierPlay, which produces the favored Scrabble Go cell recreation, based mostly on the traditional board recreation. It additionally acquired the sport studio FoxNext from The Walt Disney Co. (Disney had acquired the studio as a part of the twenty first Century Fox acquisition).
“GSN Video games has been an amazing enterprise for Sony the final 14 years, and we’re pleased with the experiences the group continues to ship for gamers world wide,” stated Ravi Ahuja, chairman of worldwide tv studios and Sony Footage Leisure company growth, in an announcement. “In assembly the Scopely group, we knew we discovered the appropriate group to assist and speed up the enterprise. We’re assured they may take GSN Video games to new heights and SPE is happy to be a minority shareholder in Scopely because of this transaction.”
