PULLUP Entertainment: The French Publisher Powering Global Gaming

PULLUP Entertainment is one of Europe’s most active mid-tier video game publishers, with a growing footprint across every major gaming market — and the Americas alone account for 53% of its total revenue. Founded in 1996 and publicly listed on Euronext Paris under the ticker ALPUL, the company has evolved from a regional French distributor into a multi-studio publishing group with more than 620 employees and a catalogue spanning genres from tactical shooters to retro beat-em-ups. For gamers and industry watchers in the United States, PULLUP Entertainment is increasingly the name behind titles they already love.

What Is PULLUP Entertainment and What Does It Do?

At its core, PULLUP Entertainment is a video game publisher and distributor. The company’s role in the games industry is to fund, market, and bring to market titles created by its in-house studios and external development partners. Rather than operating as a single-studio outfit, PULLUP runs a federated model: a parent publisher that acquires or partners with specialized studios, each with a distinct creative identity.

According to the company’s official company story page, PULLUP supports studios across production, financing, commercialization, and marketing — effectively acting as a full-service publishing infrastructure for teams that want to focus on making games. The company operates in France, the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and other international territories.

PULLUP Entertainment’s Studio Subsidiaries and Key Titles

The group’s most distinctive asset is its portfolio of subsidiary studios, each with a recognizable name among genre enthusiasts. According to the company’s half-year 2025/26 financial report, the group’s subsidiaries as of September 30, 2025, include:

• Deck 13 — the Frankfurt-based studio known for the Lords of the Fallen series and The Surge franchise, both of which blended Soulslike mechanics with distinct visual aesthetics.
• Dotemu — a Paris-based publisher-developer celebrated for revival titles including Streets of Rage 4, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, and Metal Slug Tactics, making it one of the most respected names in retro-IP revitalization.
• Dovetail Games — a UK studio specializing in simulation titles, particularly train and fishing simulators.
• Leikir Studio — a fighting-game focused developer.
• BlackMill Games — known for World War I-themed multiplayer titles including Verdun and Tannenberg.
• Black Soup and Scripteam — additional internal studios rounding out the group’s development capacity.
• Douze Dixièmes — an additional French studio within the group.

Of all the titles in the back catalogue, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 — published under the PULLUP Entertainment umbrella — became the most commercially significant release in the company’s history, fueling the exceptional fiscal 2024/25 revenue figure. The game’s success is a concrete illustration of what happens when a mid-tier publisher lands a high-demand licensed IP at the right moment.

A Brief History: From Focus Home to PULLUP Entertainment

PULLUP Entertainment was not always known by that name. The company was founded in 1996 — originally operating under the Focus Home Interactive brand — and built its reputation over two decades as a publisher with a taste for AA titles that larger publishers would overlook: hunting simulations, deep strategy games, and niche licensed properties. According to PitchBook’s company profile, the company was founded in 1996 and has been a publicly traded entity for a significant portion of its history. The rebrand to PULLUP Entertainment signaled an intent to grow beyond its French roots and position itself as a global mid-market gaming group. Dotemu’s acquisition was a particularly consequential move, bringing with it both a beloved brand in the retro-revival space and a proven track record of working with major IP holders such as SEGA and Konami.

Financial Performance: A Record Year and What Came After

Fiscal 2024/25 was a transformational year for PULLUP Entertainment. According to the company’s annual financial report as covered by MarketScreener, revenue of €390.0 million represented a 108% increase year-over-year and was 101% higher than the prior record year of 2022/23, when the company recorded €194.1 million. That growth was driven by a concentrated wave of major releases — most notably Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 — alongside robust back-catalogue performance.

The first half of fiscal 2025/26 told a more nuanced story. According to the company’s H1 2025/26 press release, revenue reached €132.6 million — a figure the company itself described as its second-best first half ever, though down 43% versus the prior year’s exceptionally strong comparable period. The key driver of resilience in that half was back-catalogue revenue: titles released before April 2025 generated a record €93.7 million, up 44% from the equivalent period in the prior year. That figure underscores how a deep catalogue of previously published games is now a structural revenue engine, not just a secondary income source.

For broader context on how gaming revenue models are evolving, the rise of back-catalogue monetization mirrors trends visible across the industry, including in the free-to-play space — a dynamic we’ve explored in depth in our analysis of how much players spend on free-to-play games.

The Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Effect

No analysis of PULLUP Entertainment’s recent trajectory is complete without examining the Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 launch. Published in September 2024, the game became a commercial phenomenon — exceeding sales expectations for the Warhammer 40K franchise and contributing heavily to the 108% revenue surge in FY2024/25. For a publisher of PULLUP’s scale, a single title of that magnitude can compress several years of organic growth into a single fiscal cycle.

The game’s performance also illustrates an important tension in PULLUP’s business model: outsized dependence on individual releases creates both extraordinary upside and meaningful downside. According to earnings call reporting by Investing.com, management revised its adjusted EBIT guidance downward in 2026 following weaker-than-expected new releases — a direct consequence of the difficult comparison base Space Marine 2 created.

New Releases vs. Back Catalogue: A Shifting Balance

According to WN Hub’s financial reporting, in full-year 2025/26, new releases earned €82.3 million — down 68.1% from the prior year — while back-catalogue games generated the majority of total revenue, reaching €199.1 million, up 31% year-over-year. Annual revenue for FY2025/26 came in at approximately €281.4 million, down 27.8% from the record FY2024/25 result. This split reveals that PULLUP Entertainment’s long-term publishing strategy — accumulating a broad portfolio of titles with sustained commercial lives — is now materially offsetting the cyclicality of new launch performance.

When back-catalogue games generate more revenue than new releases, a publisher has built something genuinely durable — not just a conveyor belt of launch windows.

PULLUP Entertainment’s Geographic Footprint: Why the U.S. Matters

For a French company, PULLUP Entertainment’s geographic revenue distribution is notably tilted toward the English-speaking world. According to the MarketScreener company profile, the Americas account for 53% of net sales, while Europe/Middle East/Africa (excluding France) accounts for 30%, France itself for 6%, Asia for 6%, and other markets for 5%.

That geographic skew means U.S. consumer behavior — platform preferences, genre trends, pricing sensitivity — is the single most important external variable for PULLUP’s top line. Titles like Streets of Rage 4 and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 both performed strongly in North America, validating the company’s thesis that AA games with strong IP or genre credentials can compete for American gamer attention without the marketing budgets of an EA or Activision.

Dotemu: PULLUP’s Crown Jewel for Retro Revivals

Among PULLUP Entertainment’s subsidiaries, Dotemu has the highest public profile with U.S. gaming audiences. The Paris-based studio has made a business out of reviving beloved retro IPs with modern production values, and its track record is exceptional: Streets of Rage 4 (developed with Lizardcube and Guard Crush Games) received near-universal critical acclaim, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge became a co-op phenomenon in 2022, and Metal Slug Tactics brought the beloved SNK franchise into turn-based strategy territory.

Dotemu’s model — licensing dormant IPs, pairing them with specialist developers, and publishing to a nostalgia-hungry but quality-conscious audience — is distinct from anything most publishers do at scale. It’s the kind of focused creative strategy that mid-tier publishing is uniquely positioned to execute, as we’ve noted in our coverage of Focus Entertainment’s publishing approach and the broader AA publisher landscape.

How Dotemu Selects Its Projects

Dotemu’s selection criteria are notably disciplined. The studio targets IPs with passionate existing fan bases — the kind where a well-executed revival generates organic press coverage before a single review is published. The developer partnerships Dotemu assembles are similarly intentional: Lizardcube for Streets of Rage 4, Tribute Games for Shredder’s Revenge, Leikir Studio for Metal Slug Tactics. Each partner was chosen for genre expertise, and the results reflect that rigor. This model is a meaningful differentiator for PULLUP Entertainment as a publishing group, offering a repeatable playbook for IP revival that larger publishers rarely execute with equivalent craft.

PULLUP Entertainment vs. Other Mid-Tier Publishers

Understanding where PULLUP Entertainment sits in the competitive landscape helps contextualize both its strengths and its risks. The following comparison draws on publicly available financial data and company profiles from the sources cited in this article.

PULLUP occupies a distinct middle ground: larger and more financially structured than a pure indie publisher like Devolver, but more agile and genre-focused than the sprawling Embracer Group model. Its Euronext listing provides capital market access while keeping it nimble enough to greenlight titles that major publishers would ignore.

Back-Catalogue Strategy: The Long Game in Modern Publishing

One of the most instructive things about PULLUP Entertainment’s recent results is what they reveal about sustainable publishing economics. Back-catalogue revenue of €93.7 million in a single half-year period — representing the majority of total H1 2025/26 revenue — is not incidental. It reflects a deliberate strategy of building titles with long commercial tails: games that sell meaningfully on digital storefronts years after their initial launch.

Source: PULLUP Entertainment H1 2025/26 press release and MarketScreener annual report coverage.

A back catalogue growing at 44% year-over-year is not a legacy asset quietly depreciating — it’s a living commercial engine that funds the next wave of development.

Outlook for PULLUP Entertainment in 2026 and Beyond

As of July 31, 2026, PULLUP Entertainment faces the classic challenge of any publisher that has just had its best year in history: maintaining momentum when the comparison base is extraordinary. Full-year FY2025/26 revenue of approximately €281.4 million, as reported by WN Hub, represents a 27.8% decline from the record FY2024/25 — but it is still comfortably above the company’s pre-Space Marine 2 revenue baseline of €187 million in FY2023/24. The company’s market capitalization stood at approximately $66.53 million as of late July 2026, according to Yahoo Finance data, against trailing revenue of approximately $281.4 million — implying a price/sales ratio of roughly 0.23, a figure that reflects investor caution about future release performance rather than disregard for the company’s underlying catalogue value.

For the gaming community, the more interesting question is what comes next in the release pipeline. With Dotemu’s retro-revival model still producing commercially and critically strong titles, Deck 13 developing in the action-RPG space, and the group’s broader portfolio spanning simulation, strategy, and multiplayer, PULLUP Entertainment’s content breadth is a genuine strategic asset. The challenge is timing: publishing is a hits business, and even a well-constructed catalogue cannot fully substitute for a marquee new release. The industry’s growing interest in AA content — games that don’t require AAA budgets but deliver substantial production values — plays directly to PULLUP’s positioning, much as it does for independent studios covered in features like our indie studio cult classic feature.

Frequently Asked Questions About PULLUP Entertainment

Is PULLUP Entertainment a publicly traded company?

Yes. PULLUP Entertainment is listed on Euronext Paris under the ticker symbol ALPUL. It trades as a société anonyme (French public limited company). As of late July 2026, its market capitalization was approximately $66.53 million, according to Yahoo Finance.

What games has PULLUP Entertainment published?

PULLUP Entertainment’s catalogue includes Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, Streets of Rage 4, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, Metal Slug Tactics, Lords of the Fallen (2023), The Surge series, Verdun, Tannenberg, and a wide range of simulation titles through Dovetail Games. The group also published A Plague Tale: Innocence and its sequel during its Focus Home Interactive era.

Where is PULLUP Entertainment headquartered?

The company is headquartered at Parc du Pont de Flandre, Bâtiment 28, 11 rue de Cambrai, Paris, France. It operates internationally through its subsidiaries, including studios based in Germany (Deck 13), the UK (Dovetail Games), and elsewhere in France (Dotemu, Leikir Studio, and others).

How many employees does PULLUP Entertainment have?

As of September 30, 2025, the PULLUP Entertainment group comprised 623 employees across its parent company and all subsidiaries, according to the company’s H1 2025/26 financial report. MarketScreener’s company profile lists 606 employees as of an earlier reporting date, reflecting normal headcount fluctuation across a multi-studio group.

What is PULLUP Entertainment’s biggest market?

The Americas — primarily the United States — is PULLUP Entertainment’s largest single market, accounting for 53% of net sales according to MarketScreener’s geographic revenue breakdown. This makes U.S. consumer and retail dynamics the most important external factor in the company’s annual performance, despite the company being French-headquartered and Euronext-listed.

What happened to PULLUP Entertainment’s revenue in 2025/26?

After a record-breaking FY2024/25 in which revenue reached €390.0 million (driven largely by Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2), full-year FY2025/26 revenue declined approximately 27.8% to around €281.4 million, according to WN Hub’s financial reporting. New release revenue fell sharply, but back-catalogue sales grew 31% year-over-year, demonstrating the resilience of the company’s existing title portfolio.

Sources

• Yahoo Finance — ALPUL.PA Quote and Financial Data — Retrieved July 31, 2026
• MarketScreener — PULLUP Entertainment Company Profile — Retrieved July 31, 2026
• MarketScreener — PULLUP Entertainment Annual Financial Report 2024/25 — Retrieved July 31, 2026
• PULLUP Entertainment — H1 2025/26 Revenue Press Release (PDF) — Retrieved July 31, 2026
• PULLUP Entertainment — Q3 2024/25 Revenue Release (PDF) — Retrieved July 31, 2026
• Investing.com — PULLUP Entertainment Q4 2025/26 Earnings Call Transcript — Retrieved July 31, 2026
• WN Hub — PULLUP Entertainment Annual Revenue Analysis 2025/26 — Retrieved July 31, 2026
• PitchBook — PULLUP Entertainment Company Profile — Retrieved July 31, 2026
• PULLUP Entertainment — Official Company Story — Retrieved July 31, 2026