Acquisition and Investment

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)