Scopely opens a new hub in Barcelona with 700 employees

The US-based company opens its largest center in Europe, with an area of 8,500 square meters in the 22@ technology district.

The leading mobile gaming company outside of China opened its new development hub in Barcelona's 22@ district on Monday, investing €13.5 million .

With a surface area of 8,500 square meters and 700 employees , the new center becomes the company's main hub in Europe and one of the three main hubs for mobile gaming talent on the continent.

After being acquired in 2023 by the Saudi group Savvy Games Group , owned by the sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia , Scopely continues to strengthen its international expansion with Barcelona as one of its strategic centers.

The company, whose CEOs are Javier Ferreira and Walter Driver, is the largest company in the sector in Spain, with more than 1,000 professionals spread across Barcelona and Seville . The Catalan capital is not only key in terms of workforce size but also for its strategic role in the design, development, and growth of titles such as Stumble Guys and Monopoly Go!, among others, which reached nearly 500 million players worldwide by 2024.

Barcelona is also home to the global headquarters of Playgami, the Scopely-owned technology platform that powers the development and operations of all its games, with over 150 employees . Additionally, Barcelona is home to Flamed, the company's in-house marketing agency and communications lab, founded in 2018 and made up of over 100 creatives who work alongside the development teams.

The new hub is located in the Green Business District building, owned by Glenwell Group , and centralizes the teams that were previously spread across two offices.

Scopely arrived in Spain in 2017 with the opening of its first European headquarters in Barcelona. Over these eight years, it has grown organically and through the acquisition of studios such as GSN Games and Omnidrone, in addition to the recent purchase of Niantic, the developer of Pokemon Go!. The company currently operates on four continents and has approximately 3,000 employees worldwide. Last year, the multinational company had revenues of $3 billion (€2.565 billion) .

During the inauguration of Scopely's offices, the President of the Generalitat (Catalan government), Salvador Illa; the Deputy Mayor for Economic Promotion of Barcelona City Council, Raquel Gil; the Co-CEO of Scopely, Javier Ferreira; and Hugo Pibernat, the CTO of Playgami and head of the company in Barcelona.

Authorities from the Generalitat and the City Council confirmed at the event that Catalonia is positioning itself as one of the main European video game ecosystems, accounting for 30% of all video game studios in Spain .