Scopely adds 2 board members, including former Activision Blizzard president

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Mobile game publisher Scopely has added two new board members, initial public offering consultant Marcie Vu and former Activision president Blizzard Coddy Johnson. It could be said that this is a sign that Scopely is preparing to go public, although Scopely himself does not say so specifically yet.

Vu is a former executive at Qatalyst and Morgan Stanley, where she has been a consultant on numerous IPOs for companies such as Alibaba.com, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Zynga. Johnson was the No. 2 of Activision Blizzard, which has a turnover of $ 8 billion and a market value of $ 74 billion. Johnson has a lot of experience at the helm of one of the largest gaming companies in the world and Scopely said it is sending an important signal to the industry as it solidifies its position as a leader in the private gaming industry as it prepares for this next phase. of growth.

Walter Driver, co-CEO of Scopely in Los Angeles, said in an interview that he is thrilled to bring the new board members on board.

We were super excited to have Coddy and Marcie come together and help us navigate Scopely’s next stage of growth, Driver said. The past few years have been exciting, with quite explosive growth in the rearview mirror. Having trusted advisors to rely on as we tackle the next set of challenges will be a huge benefit.

Coddy Johnson

Above: Javier Ferreira (left) and Walter Driver are co-CEOs of Scopely.

Image credit: Scopely

Driver said he has heard great things about Johnson from numerous mutual friends and contacts in the industry for a long time.

His leadership at Activision correlated with truly strong business performance, and he also addressed changing industry dynamics, such as platform convergence, said Driver. While we plan to build more player-centric views of our gaming experiences than platform-centric views, I think the experience is truly valuable. It has operated on a large scale. Very few people have had that kind of edge in leading such a large organization in terms of both people and revenue.

Johnson first joined Activision in 2008 as Chief of Staff to CEO Bobby Kotick. He served as Studios’ chief operating officer (COO) and then as chief financial officer and head of operations, before leaving the company to serve as COO of edtech leader AltSchool. In 2017, he returned to Activision Blizzard as president and COO, where he helped the company transition to free-to-play and mobile before retiring in March 2020.

There were many things they looked forward to learning from Coddy and that his voice was part of the strategic dialogue about the company’s future, Driver said.

Johnson helped set the strategy to create Call of Duty: Mobile and Call of Duty: Warzone as free-to-play access ramps for Call of Duty premium games.

I think the intuition for Call of Duty is not unlike where Walter is taking Scopely, which is to really listen to the players and what they want, Johnson said. And in this case, for the franchise, they really wanted to have an ongoing experience to take with them over the years, not one that disappears every fall. And that’s where Warzone comes from. I feel the good news for Scopely is that they are already doing it. They are already providing these long-running games as franchise services in ways that people care for for many years. And so I think once you’re there, a bunch of doors open.

He said it might be easier to make the transition to other platforms (perhaps PC or console) easier as a mobile-first company, rather than the other way around.

I just think there’s such an opportunity ahead of this team, Johnson said.

Johnson’s sight

Above: Coddy Johnson is the former COO and president of Activision Blizzard.

Image credit: Scopely

I have long admired the Scopely team and their trajectory, Johnson said in an interview with GamesBeat. It was in our backyard and I got to see them up close. And they were known for being a good team with good products, leading games with highly engaged communities and, in particular, on mobile, which is a transition that Activision Blizzard has been in.

What caught his attention was Scopely’s acquisition of Fox Next Games, in which Johnson said Scopely empowered the team, trusted them to do their jobs, and thus accelerated their growth with Scopelys marketing, analytics and player insights.

There are many ways to screw up these things, Johnson said. I’ve seen a management team with a lot of confidence and innate understanding of what it takes to make great games and great game makers. And so I was very impressed and shortly after I got in touch with Walter. And I was very impressed with Walter and his team. They are in a truly fantastic position to take advantage of many of the industry’s growth drivers.

What Vu brings

Above: Marcie Vu has decades of experience in acquisitions and IPOs.

Image credit: Scopely

Vu has 20 years of investment banking experience and is currently on the board of ThredUp, a publicly traded company that resells women’s and children’s clothing. She has advised on hundreds of transactions worth over $ 100 billion.

In a statement, Vu said, Scopely has all the right ingredients for high growth and long-term success: an incredibly talented, strategic and ambitious team, deep relationships with players, a technology-based approach to the platform and solid fundamentals. business. The company is not only a leader in games and technology, but is building a new vision of the game for consumers around the world.

Driver said Vu has a very distinguished career and experience in financial services at Morgan Stanley, where he led the consumer practice, and at Qatalyst, where he led the consumer technology group.

Being able to add someone like Marcie who has a unique perspective on some of the leading companies, capital markets experience, and M&A strategic consulting work, is really exciting, said Driver.

Market prospects

Above: Scopely’s popular Scrabble Go game.

Image credit: Scopely

Driver said he noted how much activity the game acquisition space saw with more than $ 49 billion in business in the first five months of the year, a record amount.

I think it’s great for anyone working in the gaming industry and excited about the future of gaming and how they pay close attention to what’s happening in public markets, said Driver. I am pleased to see that investors are becoming more enthusiastic and sophisticated about companies in this space.

Driver noted that Asia accounts for half of the global gaming market, and there haven’t been many companies in the West that have been successful in Asia.

It was the early days of building the infrastructure to have a more sophisticated presence in those markets, Driver said. We have opened offices in Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore for the past two years and are hiring people in all of these markets to explore how we bring our games to players in those markets and how we can more effectively collaborate, invest in, acquire.

Driver added: The rise of mobile has accelerated the globalization of games because there are now 2.5 billion people who always have a gaming device with them. I think being mobile-first definitely allows you to reach players in those markets. We just need to keep investing in our ability to secure those experiences and make them resonate as deeply as possible to players from different cultures and geographies.

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