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Ireland’s largest game developer, DIGIT Games Studios, has been acquired by American entertainment and mobile games company, Scopely.
The companies have been partnered up since 2015 and collaborated on Star Trek Fleet Command. Launched in November 2018, the MMO/strategy mobile game is purportedly set “to be the fastest title in Scopely’s portfolio to surpass $100 million in lifetime revenue”.
Post-acquisition, DIGIT founder and CEO Richard Barnwell will stay on to manage the Dublin-based studio which adds 70+ employees to Scopely’s “European presence”. Scopely also recently announced plans to “more than double” the footprint of its Los Angeles headquarters by next year.
“Late last year, we expanded into the strategy genre with Star Trek Fleet Command, which has proven to be a hugely successful entry into the challenging-to-tackle MMO/strategy sector—surpassing $50 million in revenue in just the first four months,” said Tim O’Brien, chief revenue officer at Scopely. “The trusted partnership we have built the last few years with our collaborator DIGIT also laid the foundation for even more opportunities in the strategy space.
“Game, tech and publishing expertise across both teams resulted in a dynamic experience players are engaging with for hours every day. It’s exciting to see the game garnering awards and popularity, showcasing that our deep collaboration has been a great mix for Fleet Command. We look forward to further scaling the Scopely business with DIGIT, who will be a fantastic addition to our growing global team.”
“We partnered with Scopely in 2015 to enable us to grow our team and focus on building world-class strategy games,” added Barnwell. “The success we’ve seen with Star Trek Fleet Command has been absolutely amazing and formalizing our relationship will allow us to scale the game even more. We can’t wait to see what else we can accomplish together.”
