At this year’s Variety Entertainment & Technology Summit, Scopely Chief Revenue Officer and board member Tim O’Brien joined Variety’s Jennifer Maas to reflect on one of the most remarkable growth stories in entertainment: the rise of mobile gaming.
From the dawn of the iPhone to today’s multi-billion-dollar ecosystem, O’Brien charted how the convergence of technology, creativity, and accessibility transformed mobile play into the most inclusive entertainment medium on the planet.
“Fifteen percent of people will tell you they’re a gamer — but 50% of people globally actually play mobile games,” O’Brien shared. “It’s become culturally the medium of choice where a lot of consumers want to spend their time.”
O’Brien revisited the pivotal moment in 2007 when Apple launched the first iPhone — a milestone that redefined how and where people play. “That first year, there wasn’t even an App Store,” he recalled. “But when a small team of coders cracked the phone, people began jailbreaking their devices and downloading games by the hundreds of thousands. That’s when I realized gaming wasn’t just software — it was a business and a cultural force.”
When the App Store debuted in 2008, it changed everything. The introduction of free, easy-to-play games opened the floodgates for creativity and participation — giving rise to a new generation of players and creators. “Mobile gaming turbo-charged the entire industry,” O’Brien said.
A few years later, in 2014, O’Brien joined Scopely and helped turn that vision into scale. One of the company’s first breakthrough partnerships came with Hasbro on a mobile adaptation of Yahtzee. The internal projection: $2 million in in-game purchases in the first year.
The result: Scopely achieved that goal in just 30 days.
“We immediately had the largest Yahtzee product Hasbro had ever produced,” O’Brien said — a moment that set the tone for Scopely’s bold, partnership-driven model.
Fast-forward to today, and Scopely is behind some of the biggest games in the world — including MONOPOLY GO!, which surpassed $5 billion in revenue in just two years, and Pokémon GO, one of the most successful mobile games of all time. Together, Scopely’s portfolio has delivered more than 5 billion hours of gameplay in the past year alone.
In March, Scopely announced its acquisition of Niantic’s games business, bringing titles such as Pokémon GO, Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter Now — along with community platforms Campfire and Wayfarer — into the Scopely family.
The move underscores Scopely’s long-term vision to expand the boundaries of play — from digital to physical, from mobile to real-world experiences. With Niantic’s talented teams and live global events joining Scopely’s ecosystem, the company now connects even more players through shared worlds that blend technology, community, and imagination.
“Mobile has become the most universal form of entertainment,” O’Brien noted. “What began as a simple screen in your pocket has evolved into a platform that brings people together — wherever they are.”
O’Brien’s reflections at the Variety Summit served as both a look back at how far the industry has come — and a glimpse ahead at the limitless opportunities still to come.