Tag Games, the Dundee studio which is behind some of the world’s largest mobile titles, including Pocket Mortys, CSR2, Prison Architect, Angry Birds Action, and more, has been acquired by ‘mobile-first’ publisher Scopely.
In 2021, Tag was one of three European Studios to split around $50 million in funding from the growing games giant, to work on as yet undisclosed game. News broke this morning that the publisher has now acquired Tag entirely. At the time, Marc Williamson, the CEO of Tag, told the Scottish Games Network: “Having worked with many publishers over the years, Scopely has differentiated themselves as a company of gamemakers that value collaboration and iteration for the betterment of the player experience above all else.“
“Having worked with many publishers over the years, Scopely has differentiated themselves as a
company of gamemakers that value collaboration and iteration for the betterment of the player
experience above all else.”
This is the latest acquisition in the local Dundee games scene, where several studios are now part of larger organisations, including Ninja Kiwi, now part of MTG and Ruffian Games, now officially known as Rockstar Dundee. In 2019, Chilli Connect, the Live Ops company spun out of Tag Games, was acquired by Unity, a day after acquiring fellow Scottish games tech company, Delta DNA.
Commenting on the acquisition, Marc Williamson, told SGN:
It’s been an exciting adventure working with Scopely these past few years, and we are energised to fully integrate into their ecosystem and see what more we can do together.
The statement from Scopely reads:
Scopely has acquired one of its longstanding partner game studios located in Dundee, Scotland. We are excited to announce the addition of Tag Games to our Scopely ecosystem!
One of our ongoing objectives at Scopely is to explore acquisition opportunities to bring additional best-in-class teams into our operating system, and the talent at Tag Games is perfectly aligned with this ambition.
Scopely is home to a dynamic ecosystem of world-class gamemakers, creating exceptional game experiences around the world. Scopely game teams include internal Scopely Studios and/or external partner studios that collaborate with a unique single team approach, where the traditional boundaries between developer and publisher are eliminated. Scopely is highly committed to building game teams with incredible talent density, inviting the world’s best gamemakers to create together!
Both internal Scopely Studios and partner studios benefit from Scopely’s publishing infrastructure, operating system, and proprietary technology platform Playgami, which offers a range of products, enabling teams to create games players love and grow them as great businesses.
In 2021, we partnered with Tag Games, a fantastic team based in Dundee, Scotland. Tag, who recently celebrated its 17th anniversary, has worked with leading publishers on more than 60 games since its founding in 2006. To collaborate even more deeply, both Scopely and Tag Games leadership felt it was the ideal time to fully join forces, and believe this combined entity will make us all even stronger. Tag shares our vision to create extremely meaningful, dynamic experiences for players and represents outstanding passion and expertise in game making. We can’t wait to see what more we can do together. With this acquisition, more than 60 employees join Scopely in Scotland.
Welcome to the Scopely adventure, Tag Games!
