Scopely acquires Perfect World’s Chengfeng Studio in $34.5m deal

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Monopoly Go developer Scopely has acquired Perfect World’s Chengfeng Studio in a $34.5 million deal.

The move will see most of the studio’s employees, including the core team, leave and set up a new company in China. Scopely will hold a minority stake in the new entity.

Chengfeng Studio was previously working on a project currently titled ‘Codename PIE’. Some of the related game assets and documents will be transferred to Scopely as part of the deal.

The Monopoly Go developer previously teased it was looking to make a major acquisition in 2025, though it said any ‘mega deal’ would be for a franchise doing “a least a billion dollars in revenue”. Scopely was previously acquired by Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group in a $4.9 billion deal.

Financial troubles

Earlier this year it was reported that Perfect World had laid off as many as 1,000 staff. One report noted that job losses impacted staff in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and other cities.

It was also claimed that titles like One Punch Man: World and the in-development Perfect New World had ceased production, though a source within the company disputed this. The last updates to the former title were in July and August.

At the time of the redundancies, the company was said to have admitted to certain games falling below expectations. In its Q1 2024 financials, the publisher reported a net loss of ¥29.8 million ($4.1m). That represented a fall of 112.33% year-over-year from ¥241.3m ($33.2m) in Q1 2023.

In July, Perfect World announced an executive shakeup with CEO Xiao Hong and co-CEO Lu Xiaoyin resigning from their positions.