Croatian studio Gamepires is acquired by Jagex, the developer of Runescape

Jagex, the leading game company in the community-driven genre, has acquired Gamepires, a Zargeb-based studio of over 50 experienced developers. The studio is best known for its open world survival title, SCUM, Business Wire reports.

• Founded in 2010, Gamepires is an independent video game development studio that creates video games with realistic graphics and gameplay. The studio’s survival game SCUM reached 250,000 sales in first 24 hours. In only 3 weeks, it reached over 1 million sales, making it the fastest selling new game on Steam at the time.

• The UK-based company Jagex acquired Gamepires for an undisclosed amount. The company is known as the developer of RuneScape, which amassed over 300 million player accounts and is a $1 billion lifetime revenue franchise. It now employs more than 450 people at its Cambridge headquarters.

“Partnering with Jagex provides us the opportunity to take SCUM to the next level. Jagex’s world-class reputation as a company where players drive game development matches our ethos. It will help us grow as entrepreneurs and as a studio. We’re extremely excited to see how we can build on everything we’ve achieved with SCUM so far and take the game to its full potential,”

Tomislav Pongrac, Creative Director and co-founder of Gamepires, comments.

• As the result of the acquisition, Jagex will use its deep expertise in community-driven games and its platform as an international publisher to accelerate SCUM as a leading open world survival title.