M&A, Investments and Exec Appointments
Supercell has signed a deal to acquire Metacore, the Helsinki-based studio behind Merge Mansion, with the transaction expected to close at the end of September. Supercell was already Metacore’s majority shareholder, and once the deal closes the Merge Mansion team will become Supercell employees and the title will join its live games portfolio. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Trailmix founder and CEO Carolin Krenzer has moved into the role of Executive Chair after almost nine years leading the company. James Nicholas, who has spent the past three and a half years as COO, has been appointed as the company’s new CEO.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is reportedly considering merging Electronic Arts and Savvy Games Group, according to Bloomberg. No final decision has been made, but a combination would bring EA and Savvy-owned Scopely under the same gaming group and could allow PIF to coordinate the businesses more closely.
Brian Ward is stepping down as CEO of Savvy Games Group after five years with the company. Turqi Alnowaiser, Deputy Governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, will serve as interim acting CEO until a permanent successor is appointed.
LEGO Digital Play has acquired UK mobile studio Offroad Games, less than two years after it was spun out of Space Ape Games by a team of former employees. Offroad has been building car-focused mobile games, while financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Lasse Seppänen, General Manager of Supercell London, has left Supercell after more than seven years with the company. He plans to launch a new UK studio in 2027.
Istanbul-based mobile studio Circle Games has raised $25m in a Series A led by Tencent, taking its total funding to $32.25m. The studio, which released puzzle title Sort Express globally, plans to expand its games into new markets, at least double its team and develop additional mobile titles.
Jörgen Larsson has joined Coloxeum as Chairman. The new Uppsala-based gaming startup is focused on short, skill-based competitive games. Larsson founded Stillfront in 2010 and previously served as its CEO.
Sony Music Entertainment Japan has agreed to acquire a 23.29% stake in GungHo Online Entertainment for ¥28.6bn ($182.5m), making it the Puzzle & Dragons developer’s largest shareholder. GungHo will remain independently managed and publicly listed.
Tamara Feiman has been appointed CEO of Lion Studios after six years with the company. She succeeds Nicholas Le, who has moved into the role of Studio Chair and has also become CEO of PeopleFun.
Luis de la Camara, VP of Global Marketing at Rovio Entertainment, is leaving the company after five years. He is relocating to the Netherlands and plans to move into the B2B ad tech sector.
Moloco has appointed former Etsy CFO Rachel Glaser to its Board of Directors. She brings senior financial leadership experience across digital marketplace and technology businesses.
Samantha Benjamin has stepped up to VP Growth at Supersonic Studios, following its acquisition by Tripledot Studios. Benjamin has spent almost nine years within the ironSource/Unity business.
Luis Russell has joined Huuuge Games as VP Product after around 13 years at King, where he most recently served as Senior Product Director.
Marc Cartwright has joined Funday Games as Game Director. He brings around 20 years of industry experience, including directorial roles at Jagex, CI Games and Tarsier Studios.
Industry News
King has signed a collective agreement with Swedish trade unions Unionen and Sveriges Ingenjörer, avoiding planned industrial action at its Swedish operations. The agreement follows more than a year of negotiations and a strike notice issued on September 15, which has now been withdrawn.
Finnish creative studio Piñata has returned to independence after three years as part of Metacore. Founded in 2008 and acquired by Metacore in 2023, Piñata has worked with companies including Supercell, Rovio, Wooga, Zynga and Housemarque and will now focus on animation, illustration, visual development and user acquisition creatives.
35% of games company founders said they had decided against hiring someone because AI tools could perform the work instead, according to the 2026 Big Games Industry Employment Survey. The research, based on 1,800 respondents across 90 countries, also found that 78% of games workers said AI had changed how they work this year.
Unity has launched an official Claude Code plugin, bringing its first-party development tools and workflows into Anthropic’s AI coding agent. The plugin launches with 29 built-in Unity skills, covering areas including graphics, UI, multiplayer, monetisation and live ops.
ARM has unveiled CSS for Mobile 2, a new mobile computing platform focused on agentic AI and AI-native graphics. Its new Mali G2-Ultra NX GPU uses dedicated AI hardware to improve graphics performance and efficiency, which ARM says could enable sharper visuals and smoother gameplay on future mobile devices.
Supercell has moved monster-hunting title mo.co back into beta development after admitting the game has not performed as well as hoped. The current version will remain in low-maintenance mode while the team experiments with larger changes, with its next update targeted for before the end of 2026.
Hiring Trends
Although the mobile games industry has undoubtedly become more international over recent years, the reality for many senior executives in EMEA is that there may only be a handful of mobile games companies in their local ecosystem.
This creates a challenge when looking for a new role: stay local, but potentially move out of the industry, or relocate internationally to remain within mobile games? For many executives, it becomes a surprisingly stark choice between geography and sector.
The result is often a loss of experienced talent from the industry. Senior executives who might happily spend their careers in mobile games move into adjacent technology or entertainment sectors simply because there aren’t enough suitable opportunities where they live.
It creates a challenge for employers too. Companies seeking experienced mobile games leaders while requiring them to live locally are often drawing from a remarkably small talent pool. Studios that can offer genuine location flexibility, whether through remote working or relocation support, have access to a much deeper market.
For an industry that increasingly operates globally, hiring senior talent may need to become equally international.
About Neon River
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