Savvy Games Group: How Saudi Arabia Bought Into Global Gaming

What Savvy Games Group Is

Savvy Games Group is a games and esports company wholly owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. It was set up in 2021 and is based in Riyadh. Its chief executive is Brian Ward, formerly head of worldwide studios at Activision Blizzard, and when its investment strategy was launched in 2022 the Crown Prince was named as its chairman.

Savvy describes its mission as supporting the long-term growth of the games and esports sector through acquisitions, investments and commercial ventures, while building an environment at home in which local businesses, players and fans can grow. In practice it operates on two tracks at once: owning large international businesses, and seeding the Saudi industry with studios, training and partnerships.

Its portfolio today is built around a handful of operating companies. Scopely, the mobile games publisher based in Culver City, California, is a wholly owned subsidiary. ESL FACEIT Group, formed by merging the esports organiser ESL Gaming with the competitive gaming platform FACEIT, runs tournaments and operates the Esports World Cup. Steer Studios, headquartered in Riyadh, is Savvy's own game developer.

Since early 2026 Savvy has also become the home for PIF's minority stakes in listed games companies. In January 2026, PIF said it would transfer around $12 billion of gaming-related shares to Savvy, and a Savvy spokesperson said the move shifted stewardship of those holdings without changing the investment strategy.

The SAR 142 Billion Strategy Behind the Deals

On 29 September 2022, the Crown Prince launched Savvy's strategy, setting out roughly SAR 142 billion (about $37.8 billion) of investment across four programmes. It is unusual for a state-owned investor to publish its intentions in this much detail, and the plan explains most of what Savvy has done since.

The largest single line, SAR 70 billion, was set aside for minority stakes in key companies that support Savvy's game development agenda. SAR 50 billion was earmarked to acquire and develop a leading game publisher as a strategic development partner. A further SAR 20 billion was allocated to mature industry partners that add expertise to the portfolio, and SAR 2 billion to early-stage disruptors in games and esports.

The strategy is framed around four pillars — enhancing returns, creating local impact, leaving a global footprint, and expanding. It also tied Savvy to national outcomes: establishing 250 games companies in the Kingdom, supporting 39,000 jobs, and helping lift the sector's contribution to GDP to SAR 50 billion by 2030.

Read against that plan, the acquisitions that followed are not opportunistic. The SAR 50 billion publisher programme matches the purchase of Scopely; the minority-stake programme matches positions in companies such as Embracer Group and, later, the consolidation of PIF's listed holdings under Savvy.

The Acquisitions: From ESL FACEIT to Scopely and Moonton

Savvy's first major move came in January 2022, when it agreed to buy both ESL Gaming and FACEIT and merge them into ESL FACEIT Group. The two deals were widely reported at a combined $1.5 billion. Modern Times Group, ESL's previous owner, valued ESL Gaming at an enterprise value of $1,050 million and completed the sale on 21 April 2022. The merged group brought together tournament operation and broadcasting with FACEIT's competitive-play platform and community tools.

The publisher acquisition followed in 2023. Savvy agreed in April 2023 to buy Scopely, the mobile games company behind Star Trek Fleet Command, Stumble Guys and YAHTZEE With Buddies, and completed the $4.9 billion deal on 12 July 2023 — described by Savvy at the time as its largest investment to date. Scopely's MONOPOLY GO!, launched in April 2023, became the most downloaded game worldwide shortly after. Scopely continues to run as an autonomous business under its own co-CEOs.

Scopely then became an acquirer in its own right. On 29 May 2025 it completed the $3.5 billion acquisition of Niantic's games business, bringing Pokémon GO, Pikmin Bloom and Monster Hunter Now, along with the Campfire and Wayfarer community apps, into the Savvy group.

The most recent large deal targets mobile esports. On 20 March 2026, Savvy and ByteDance signed an agreement for Savvy to acquire Moonton, the developer and publisher of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, at a reported value of more than $6 billion, with completion subject to regulatory approvals. Mobile Legends is reported to have more than 1.5 billion downloads and around 110 million monthly active users, and it has a large competitive scene across Southeast Asia.

PIF's Wider Gaming Holdings and the Electronic Arts Deal

Savvy is not the only channel through which Saudi capital entered the industry. PIF has also bought minority stakes in listed publishers directly. In May 2022 it disclosed a 5.01% stake in Nintendo, and by February 2023 its holding was reported at 8.3%, making it the largest outside shareholder at that time. It also built stakes in Japanese companies including Capcom, Nexon and Koei Tecmo, and in June 2022 Savvy took an 8.1% stake in Sweden's Embracer Group for SEK 10.3 billion (about $1 billion).

In 2026 those holdings began to be consolidated. In January, PIF announced the transfer of about $12 billion of listed gaming shares to Savvy, including its positions in Nintendo and Bandai Namco, and reports said Savvy would hold stakes of roughly 10% in companies such as Koei Tecmo, NCSoft, Nexon and Square Enix. In February, filings confirmed that PIF's stake in Take-Two Interactive — around 11 million shares worth just under $3 billion — had moved to Savvy.

The largest single transaction, however, was led by PIF itself. On 29 September 2025, Electronic Arts agreed to be acquired by a consortium of PIF, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners at an enterprise value of about $55 billion, or $210 per share in cash. The financing comprised about $36 billion of equity, including PIF's rollover of its existing 9.9% stake, and $20 billion of debt. EA stockholders approved the deal in December 2025, and the acquisition closed in August 2026, taking EA private with Andrew Wilson remaining as chief executive.

Taken together, Saudi capital now spans controlling ownership of mobile publishers and esports operators through Savvy, significant positions in Japanese and US publishers, and — through PIF — majority-backed ownership of one of the largest console and PC publishers in the world.

The National Gaming and Esports Strategy

The investment push is anchored in a national plan. On 15 September 2022, the Crown Prince unveiled the National Gaming and Esports Strategy, with the stated aim of making the Kingdom a global hub for the sector by 2030. It is delivered through 86 initiatives, launched and managed by more than 20 government and private entities, covering the value chain from hardware and game production to esports, infrastructure, regulation, education and talent.

Its targets are specific. The strategy aims to add about SAR 50 billion to GDP, create 39,000 new jobs by 2030, see more than 30 competitive games produced in Saudi studios, and place Saudi Arabia among the top three countries for professional esports players. At launch, the Kingdom was reported to have about 21 million gamers.

Savvy is one of the main instruments for delivering that plan, but not the only one. Ministries, universities, the Saudi Esports Federation and private studios each carry parts of it. Savvy's own announcements routinely link its local programmes — from school competitions to incubators — back to the National Gaming and Esports Strategy and Vision 2030.

This is the key point for local businesses: the measure of success is not only what Savvy owns abroad, but how many Saudi companies, jobs and games exist by 2030. That is where the national strategy and Savvy's local-impact pillar meet.

Building at Home: Studios, Talent and Partnerships

The local side of Savvy's work is less visible than its acquisitions but more directly relevant to Saudi developers. Steer Studios, formerly Savvy Games Studios, rebranded in August 2023 as an international game studio headquartered in Riyadh, with more than 50 staff at the time, nearly 30% of them women. Its debut title, Grunt Rush, is a free-to-play mobile strategy game.

Education has become a major focus. Under a partnership with the Ministry of Education, the first nationwide 'Play to Learn' competition concluded in May 2026 with 719,359 student participants from 7,705 middle and high schools, who submitted 155,574 game concepts. Roblox, which signed a memorandum of understanding with Savvy in May 2026, is helping turn the ten finalist concepts into playable prototypes with support from Saudi developers.

Savvy has also been bringing tools and training into the Kingdom. In June 2026 it signed agreements with Genvid Holdings and Massive Studios to give Saudi studios, independent developers and universities access to AI tools for game content, cinematics and marketing. On 31 August 2026 it signed an MoU with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to combine Savvy Academy's Nine66 incubator with the ministry's CODE incubator under a new Code-Nine66 Program, and in early September it added agreements with Gosu Academy and Warpzone AI Labs on training and AI-native game development.

None of this replaces the slow work of building studios that ship and sustain games. But the pattern is clear: Savvy is using its global relationships to bring platforms, tooling and expertise into the Saudi market, and channelling young talent towards them through schools, academies and incubators.

What It Means for Saudi Developers and Businesses

For Saudi game developers, the most immediate effect is access. Partnerships that bring developer-relations teams, AI production tools, incubation and training into the Kingdom lower the barriers that previously meant building a career abroad. The expanding pipeline of students exposed to game design through school competitions should, over time, widen the pool of junior talent studios can hire.

For businesses outside the games sector, the shift is about demand. Brands, educators, government entities and retailers increasingly see games as a channel for engagement, training and marketing. Gamified learning, branded mobile experiences and interactive campaigns all require the same skills — design, art, engineering and testing — that the national strategy is trying to build.

There are realistic limits. Most of the value Savvy has assembled sits in studios and platforms based outside the Kingdom, and turning ownership into local production capacity takes years. The national target of more than 30 competitive games from Saudi studios is a high bar, and it will be met by teams that can ship, operate and improve games over time, not by capital alone.

The practical takeaway is that the infrastructure, funding and partnerships around Saudi gaming are now in place on a scale few countries can match. The opportunity for local companies is to supply what that ecosystem needs most: well-built, well-tested games and interactive products made in the Kingdom, for players in the region and beyond.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Savvy Games Group is how Saudi Arabia bought into global gaming: a PIF-owned company with a published SAR 142 billion strategy, ownership of Scopely and ESL FACEIT Group, the games business behind Pokémon GO, an agreement to acquire Moonton, and — since 2026 — custody of PIF's listed gaming stakes. Alongside it, PIF led the take-private of Electronic Arts.

The deals establish scale and relationships. The next test is local: whether the national targets for jobs, companies and Saudi-made games are met by 2030. That depends on schools, incubators and, above all, on studios in the Kingdom that can build, test and ship games players want.