Scopely invests 13.5 million in a new hub to strengthen its presence in Barcelona

Barcelona continues to strengthen its central role in the video game industry. In recent years, announcements of global companies choosing the Catalan capital to set up their development studios have been constant. A sector increasingly consolidated in the city that already has prominent players such as King, Ubisoft, and Scopely, a US group that is reinforcing its presence in the Catalan capital with a new hub in 22@ to grow in surface area and number of employees. A new space that also responds to the growth of the Los Angeles (California)-based company, owner of popular games such as Monopoly GO, Scrabble GO, Stumble Guys, and Star Trek Fleet Command, which is already the leading company in mobile video game revenue outside of China.

The new offices, which have a total of 8,500 square meters ---distributed over five floors---, occupy two of the four buildings of the complex called Green Business District, owned by Glenwell Group and designed by BCA Arquitectes. With this new hub, which has required an investment of 13.5 million euros, it has more comfortable and wider spaces (designed by Batlleiroig) than in its previous headquarters, until now located in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, and reaches 700 employees. This new hub, in fact, is already the fourth office that Scopely has opened in Barcelona, which has been changing headquarters to accompany the growth of both the sector and the company, which last year billed more than 3 billion dollars.

"Every time we open a new space, we think it will be the definitive one, but Scopely keeps growing," highlighted Hugo Pibernat, head of the company in the Catalan capital, who acknowledged that, despite the large surface area of the new offices, the space will even become "small" for the ambitious growth plans of the video game developer. In fact, of the 3,000 employees that the US company has worldwide, more than 1,000 work from Spain. Of these employees, the vast majority are located in Barcelona (about 700), while a hundred work from the Seville offices and about 180 more do so remotely from different points of the territory.

Scopely was born in Los Angeles a little over a decade ago, in 2011. Just four years later, driven by the strong growth the company was experiencing, the video game developer decided to look for a second city in which to locate its technological hub. Despite considering different European capitals, Barcelona was the city that presented itself as the best option, in addition to being the one where they felt most supported by the administrations. The arrival of the American company in Catalonia was also possible thanks to employees like Pibernat, who had the "dream" and the conviction that the city had all the necessary elements to become the headquarters of this new hub and play a relevant role in the gaming sector.

Thus, in 2017, the video game developer settled in Barcelona, with only five employees. Of those initial five employees, currently four of them still continue to work for the company, a fact that, for the company's executives, demonstrates Scopely's ability to retain local talent, as well as to attract it from all over the world. In fact, of its current 700 employees, now located in the new offices in 22@, more than half are foreigners. The offices in the Catalan capital, in addition to the teams responsible for the development of several games, are also the headquarters of Playgami, the company's technological platform; and of FLAMED, its advertising agency.

The company's forecasts are for the Spanish team to grow even more in the coming years ---and they currently have about fifty vacancies available---. An expansion of the workforce that responds to the central role that the hub in the Catalan capital plays in the company as a whole. "Barcelona is our most important headquarters globally, where we grow the most and where we invest the most in terms of growth and employees," said Javier Ferreira, co-CEO of Scopely. Ferreira stated that future projections are promising and that their objective is to continue growing in the Catalan capital, especially considering the increase in turnover in recent years. Currently, more than 500 million users play one of the applications developed by the American company.

In addition to payment functions and advertising in its video games (games that take an average of three to four years to create), another of the great growth levers has been the acquisition of other leading companies in the sector, such as the recent purchase of Nantic for 3.5 billion dollars ---owner of the popular Pokémon GO!--- or the Catalan Omnidrone. Likewise, the company was acquired in 2023 by the Saudi group Savvy Games Group, owned by Saudi Arabia's public investment fund.

The company's prominent role in the Barcelona ecosystem is also exemplified by the large presence of authorities during the inauguration ceremony of this new space, which was attended by the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa; the Minister of Culture, Sònia Hernández; the Deputy Mayor for Economic Promotion of the City Council; as well as representatives from Acció. An institutional presence that Illa wanted to highlight: "in a while I will attend the meeting with the central Government to define the singular financing model for Catalonia, but first I have come to this inauguration," emphasizing that for the Generalitat it is "a priority" that companies like Scopely help generate wealth for the Catalan territory and "shared prosperity."

Raquel Gil expressed herself in the same terms, assuring that "Barcelona is becoming the European capital in innovation and digital talent," highlighting the City Council's commitment to diversifying the city's economy with sectors such as audiovisual or video games. So much so that the Catalan capital already has the presence of multinationals such as the British King, the French Ubisoft, the Saudi Sandsoft, the Chinese NetEase Games, the Danish IO Interactive or the Swiss Fun Plus.

In total, the gaming sector has more than 200 development studios and employs more than 4,600 people in Barcelona. A prominent role in the gaming ecosystem that is also reinforced by the presence of actors such as the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE), an audiovisual fair held at Fira Barcelona where gaming and digital culture are increasingly taking center stage, or projects such as the future Catalunya Media City in the Tres Xemeneies of Sant Adrià de Besòs.