Game Deal Making Picks Up In Q4 After Quiet 2024

Thousands of layoffs and several spectacular flops battered the video game business in 2024 as it continued to endure the post-pandemic pullback in audiences. The good news: Year-end statistics on deal-making suggests a modest uptick in the sector, some $17.5 billion in 985 deals. Just don’t expect too much heat quite yet.

“While the games industry has made it through ‘survive ’til ’25,’ DDM’s outlook remains cautiously optimistic,” said Mitchell Reavis, Manager of the DDM Games Investment Review, a quarterly report on IPOs, mergers & acquisitions and investments in the industry. “However, the belt-tightening is certainly not over as DDM expects the games industry to suffer more layoffs, pivots from in-house game development to external, and divestitures of non-core business offerings.“

Total investments jumped two-thirds from 2023 to 2024, to $7.7 billion, while initial public offerings jumped 364% to just over $3 billion, according to DDM.

Given the vast Microsoft acquisition of Activision-Blizzard in 2023, mergers & acquisitions in 2024 were far lower, without any new industry-shattering deals to boost totals. Take out the nearly $69 billion spent on Activision, however, and M&A value and volumes both jumped doubled digits, 22% and 10% respectively.

Q4 M&A showed a particularly significant jump over the previous year, from $800 million to $5 billion, suggesting both industry consolidation and growing interest in the sector as acquisition prices moderate.

In a bit of teeter totter, the investment and IPO totals that were so substantial year-over-year were down notably in 2024’s final quarter, perhaps unsurprising given the uncertainties and complications of the U.S. presidential election and economic direction.

Deal-making was heavily focused on game technology and mobile, particularly in Asia and Europe, according to DDM.

As with increasing optimism in other sectors under the Trump Administration’s anti-regulatory fervor, Reavis suggest deal-making should pick up soon in games too.

“DDM forecasts that studio and game financing will slowly grow in 2025 as many companies end their fiscal year in March and loosen their purse strings for 2026/2027 games and strategic investments,” Reavis said. “In addition, DDM predicts to see a slight increase in activity throughout 2025 with a rise in artificial intelligence and blockchain.”

The report points to several factors that could drive more game deal-making, including:

• Hasbro, Krafton, My.Games, Nazara Technologies, and Say Games have all set aside cash to invest in games.
• Miniclip’s $1.2B acquisition of Easy Brain, MTG’s $820.0M acquisition of Plarium, and a possible Scopely “megadeal” are revving early 2025 deal totals.
• Private equity companies bought several notable game studies in 2024 (Keywords Studios, Jagex, and Kahoot!). Should interest rates further moderate, more such acquisitions can be expected.

Venture capital firms continue to be interested in game tech that relies on blockchain and artificial intelligence, as 25 funds focused on one or the other sector have raised $3.9 billion.

DDM, short for Digital Development Management, consults with game companies on a variety of services, including representation, consulting, data, and investment strategies.

The company’s methodology focuses on “Western investments that span development, publishing and technology across PC, console, mobile, browser, mass community (MMO, MOBA, battle royale, metaverse), blockchain, eSports and AR/VR games. In short, our focus is fully on the games industry, where other reporting organizations include non-games technology investments and acquisitions by companies such as Apple and Microsoft, which overshadow and obfuscate what is happening in games.”