Acquisition and Investment

2019 Stats

• Global games businesses raised $5.7bn in investment in 2018, over twice the previous record from 2017. (Gamasutra / Digi Capital, Jan 2019)

• Epic Games raised $1.25bn in investment in 2018, the largest non-IPO games investment to date. (Gamasutra / Digi Capital, Jan 2019)

• Chinese games and media giant Tencent was a major investor or shareholder in the top four games investment deals in 2018: Epic Games ($1.25bn raised), Douya ($630m), Shanda Games ($474m) and Huya (£462m). (Gamasutra / Digi Capital, Jan 2019)
  • The fifth largest games investment deal of 2018 was France's Voodoo at $200m from Goldman Sachs.

• 16 games companies raised investment of more than $100m in 2018. (Gamasutra / Digi Capital, Jan 2019)

• In 2018, over $22bn of mergers and acquisitions occurred in the global games sector, the second highest year on record. (Gamasutra / Digi Capital, Jan 2019)
  • This included mega-deals such as Napsers selling 2% of Tencent for more than $10bn and Tencent acquiring Vivendi's $2bn stake in Ubisoft.
  • There were 13 games industry mergers and acquisitions worth more than $100m in 2018.

2017 Stats

• Tencent Holdings Ltd. has taken a 17.7 million pound ($23.2 million) stake in Frontier Developments. The new shares represent 9 percent of the issued share capital of the company after their issue, making Tencent the largest shareholder behind David Braben, chief executive of Frontier. (Bloomberg, June 2017)

2016 Stats

• The combined spending on mergers and acquisitions in 2016 was $21bn, including Blizzard’s acquisition of King ($5.9bn) and Tencent’s majority share in Supercell ($8.6bn). (GI.biz, Dec 2016)

• The Chinese gaming giant Tencent has bought the majority (84.3%) share of Fiinland’s ‘Clash of the Clans’ / ‘Clash Royale’ developer Supercell for $8.6bn. Tencent also own ‘League of Legends’ developer Riot Games as well as a range of investments in other well-known companies. (MCV, June 2016)

2015 Stats

• GAME has acquired UK eSports specialist Multiplay in 2015. This is in line with one of the retailers’ key objectives which is to build the most valuable community of gamers. Multiplay will gain access to the 17m Reward Card holders and the 330 shops the retailer owns to hold eSports events, while GAME will benefit from Multiplay’s expertise within the digital PC player market and eSports. (MCV, Mar 2015)

2014 Stats

• Microsoft bought Mojang for $2.5bn in 2014, seemingly mainly to get access to its large fanbase of 22m cumulative total install base (Superdata, Sept 2014)

• Amazon bought video game streaming service Twitch for $970m (£585m) in 2014. The service has 55m unique monthly viewers, and brings committed players to Amazon’s potential audience. (BBC, Aug 2014)

• Facebook bought Oculus Rift for $2bn in 2014. Facebook envisions the virtual reality device could be used more than just for games, for example for social networking. (The Guardian, July 2014)