Scopely Acquires Majority Stake in Loom Games, Developer Behind 10 Million Player Mobile Hit Pixel Flow
TL;DR
- Scopely has acquired an undisclosed majority stake in Loom Games, the Istanbul-based mobile studio behind hybrid casual puzzle game Pixel Flow, which has already surpassed ten million players worldwide.
- Loom Games was founded just last year by CEO Kübra Gündoğan and CTO Emre Çelik, making this acquisition a remarkably fast outcome for a studio with roughly 20 employees and a game only months into its commercial life.
It is not every day that a mobile studio founded less than two years ago lands a majority acquisition from one of the most aggressive buyers in the games industry. But Loom Games, the Istanbul-based team behind Pixel Flow, has done exactly that, with Scopely moving to take a controlling stake in the developer in a deal that reflects just how quickly a strong mobile game can attract serious attention.
The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but the strategic rationale is easy to read. Pixel Flow reached ten million players in a matter of months, climbed the top-grossing charts faster than most industry observers would expect from a small team, and did it with a hybrid casual puzzle format that sits in one of mobile gaming's most commercially reliable categories. For Scopely, which has built much of its business around identifying high-performing mobile games and scaling them, Loom fits the playbook almost perfectly.
Who Are Loom Games?
Loom Games is a young studio by any measure. Founded in Istanbul last year by CEO Kübra Gündoğan and CTO Emre Çelik, the company currently employs around 20 people and has, at this point, shipped one game. That game happens to have ten million players, which changes the conversation considerably.
Before the Scopely deal closed, Loom completed a seed funding round backed by Arcadia Gaming Partners and e2vc, two investors with track records in the mobile and gaming space. That early backing helped the studio build and launch Pixel Flow, and the game's commercial performance in the months since launch is clearly what caught Scopely's eye.
Gündoğan has been open about what drew Loom to Scopely specifically rather than other potential acquirers or investors. In her statement on the deal, she said that Scopely's attitude during conversations about the partnership was a significant factor: "In our conversations with Scopely, their confidence in our hybrid-casual game-making was incredibly affirming."
She also highlighted what the deal represents for the Turkish gaming ecosystem more broadly: "We are proud to be one of few gaming companies in Türkiye to achieve such an impressive outcome with this deal – a milestone that reflects not only our team's dedication, but also the strength and global potential of the Turkish gaming ecosystem."
That framing matters. Turkey has produced genuinely impressive mobile gaming companies in recent years. Peak Games, founded in Istanbul, was acquired by Zynga in 2020 for 1.8 billion dollars in one of the largest mobile gaming acquisitions at the time. Dream Games, also based in Istanbul and founded by former Peak employees, raised hundreds of millions in funding and built Royal Match into one of the highest-grossing mobile puzzle games in the world. Loom Games is a much younger company, but the trajectory places it in recognisable company.
What Pixel Flow Is and Why It Attracted Scopely
Pixel Flow sits in the hybrid casual category, a segment of mobile gaming that has grown significantly over the past several years as developers have found ways to combine the accessibility of hyper-casual games with the deeper progression systems and monetisation loops of mid-core titles.
Pure hyper-casual games, which are built to be extremely easy to pick up with minimal friction, dominated mobile charts for years but have faced increasing pressure as player acquisition costs rose and retention proved difficult to sustain. Hybrid casual games address that problem by layering in more engaging core mechanics, meta-progression systems, and social features that keep players coming back. The puzzle category, in particular, has proven a reliable home for this approach, as demonstrated by the sustained success of games like Royal Match, Candy Crush Saga and Gardenscapes.
Scopely's Chief Revenue Officer and board member Tim O'Brien was direct about what the numbers behind Pixel Flow's early performance signalled: "Pixel Flow is only a few months into its journey, yet it's already reached millions of players and climbed the top-grossing charts at remarkable speed."
He continued: "The combination of creativity, willingness to iterate, and immediate traction in the mobile game space is extremely rare and impressive, and we believe this team has a bright future ahead."
That combination, creative instinct plus willingness to iterate quickly plus demonstrable early traction, is precisely the profile Scopely looks for when making investments or acquisitions. It is harder to find than it sounds, especially in a small team still in its first year of operation.
Scopely's Acquisition Strategy and Why This Deal Makes Sense
Scopely is not a company that needs much introduction in mobile gaming circles. Originally founded in Los Angeles in 2011, the company has grown aggressively through a combination of its own game development and strategic acquisitions of studios and game franchises.
Its portfolio includes Star Trek Fleet Command, Stumble Guys, Marvel Strike Force, and Monopoly Go, the latter of which became one of the biggest mobile game launches in history when it hit over one billion dollars in revenue within its first year. The company was acquired by Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group in 2023, giving it substantial capital resources to continue expanding.
A Strong Signal for Turkish Mobile Gaming
It is worth stepping back from the deal specifics to consider what this acquisition says about where Turkish game development sits right now on the global map.
Turkey's gaming industry has developed rapidly, driven by a strong technical talent pool, competitive operating costs compared to Western markets, and a culture of entrepreneurship that has produced several genuinely world-class mobile gaming companies. Peak and Dream Games demonstrated that Istanbul-based studios could compete at the highest level of the global market. Loom Games, with its rapid traction and now a majority acquisition from a top-tier global publisher, adds another data point to that argument.
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