Croatia's Gamepires gets picked up by UK-based publisher Jagex

Carlyle-owned Jagex will support Gamepires' platform expansion of the horror survival co-op SCUM, following that game's PC debut.
Croatia's Gamepires gets picked up by UK-based publisher Jagex

Gamepires, the Croatian games developer behind open-world horror survival game SCUM, has been acquired by UK-based publisher Jagex for an undisclosed sum.

Zagreb-HQed Gamespires is reporting more than 3 million copies of SCUM have been sold to PC gaming audiences. Joining Jagex will allow it to port the game over to leading games consoles, expanding its addressable revenue.

The transaction terms of the deal were not disclosed. Jagex CEO Phil Mansell said the acquisition would build on its existing portfolio of community-driven interactive experiences, including its popular massively online role-playing fantasy Runescape.

Since 2021 Jagex has been owned  by the global investment firm Carlyle, which is bankrolling an M&A campaign to drive inorganic growth of the publisher's games pipeline. Earlier this year, Jagex snapped up Pipeworks Studios, a 200-person development studio based in Oregon.

"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," Mansell said.

SCUM is a collaborative open world survival horror that lets playing squads roam about fields to escape and fend off hordes of creepy zombies.

It's pretty well regarded by gaming critics and Gamepires claims it consistently makes the top 100 games in terms of playing time on the PC portal Steam. 

Tomislav Pongrac, Gamepires creative director and co-founder, added: "Partnering with Jagex provides us the opportunity to take SCUM to the next level."

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