PopReach Games closes Vancouver studio

Mobile and social games publisher PopReach Games has closed its Vancouver studio and laid off staff.

VP of game studios Marina Sapunova confirmed in a LinkedIn post that the Canada office had been “sunset”. Another employee affected by the job losses also said the company had shut its doors.

PocketGamer.biz has reached out to PopReach owned Ionik for clarification on the number of layoffs and status of its games division, but has not received a response at the time of publication.

In its latest Q2 financials, Ionik labelled itself as a “data-driven performance marketing technology company” and noted the sale of its games business during the quarter.

Games sale

Earlier this year, publisher Phoenix Games acquired PopReach’s India-based live ops studio in a deal worth $9.8 million. The purchase saw Phoenix Games add more than 100 staff to its workforce.

It also snapped up PopReach’s portfolio of titles that included Smurf’s Village, Smurf’s Magic Match, Gardens of Time, Kitchen Scramble, Kingdoms of Camelot, War of Nations, and Peak.

The acquisition marked the sale of “substantially all of its mobile games portfolio”, which had previously generated more than 420 million lifetime downloads.

Phoenix Games confirmed it did not own PopReach’s Vancouver studio and was not involved in any decision-making process regarding its closure.