Jagex acquires SCUM developer Gamepires

British game developer & publisher Jagex announced on Wednesday that it has acquired Croatia-based games studio Gamepires for an undisclosed sum.

Founded in 2010 by Tomislav Pongrac, Gamepires is mostly famous for its multiplayer online survival title SCUM, which has sold over more than 3 million copies so far and repeatedly ranked among the top 100-most played games on Steam since its release in 2018.

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RunScape-maker Jagex said in a press release that the acquisition of Gamepires, which currently consists of more than 50 game developers, will bring SCUM to other platforms with a 1.0 release in the future.

Jagex CEO Phil Mansell said the following regarding the acquisition: “Building game communities is the lifeblood of what we do at Jagex, and this shared passion is why we’re delighted to welcome Gamepires into the fold. We believe in the vision of Tomislav, Andrej and their talented team who’ve built an impressive open world survival game, cultivated a highly engaged community and grown a strong profitable business. With our backing and the support of our Jagex Partners publishing team, together we will make SCUM an even greater global success.“

Gamepires Co-founder and Creative Director Tomislav Pongrac commented: “Partnering with Jagex provides us the opportunity to take SCUM to the next level. Jagex’s world-class reputation as a company where players drive game development matches our ethos and will help us grow as entrepreneurs and as a studio. We’re extremely excited to see how we can build on everything we’ve achieved with SCUM so far and take the game to its full potential.”

Earlier this year, Jagex also bought US-based game developer Pipeworks Studios for an undisclosed amount, which marked its first-ever acquisition of an external game studio.