M&A and Investment

Ubisoft continues to face the repercussions of shutting down the racing action game The Crew. Recently, the company was sued by the organization UFC-Que Choisir, which protects consumer rights in France

Eidos-Montréal is not the only game studio that announced layoffs at the end of March; Polyarc also decided to "downsize"

The company Unity has decided to dispose of two major assets. It disclosed its plans in a report for investors.

Reforged Studios has taken ownership of Headup Games, known for publishing Super Meat Boy 3D.

Headup Games has changed ownership once again. It is now under the wing of Reforged Studios.

The transaction amount has not been disclosed

Jest has introduced the Jest Games Fund, aimed at supporting studios in creating games tailored for the RCS messaging ecosystem. This initiative is part of Jest's role as the inaugural marketplace for apps utilizing SMS and RCS texting protocols, allowing these games to be published on its platform.

tinyBuild shared its financial report for the past year. In it, the company discussed a significant increase in revenue

With a delay, we're publishing the first of two premium long-reads for this week (the one for Wednesday). This is a comparison of the financial performance of nearly 20 public gaming companies for the fourth calendar quarter of last year

GDEV announced that its co-founder Boris Gertsovsky is no longer among its shareholders

IOI Partners, the publishing arm of IO Interactive, has ended its publishing agreement with Build a Rocket Boy regarding the game MindsEye

Saudi Arabia's Electronic Gaming Development Company, chaired by the crown prince, has purchased a 5% share in Capcom

Google Play has unveiled a range of new features designed to enhance the discoverability and attractiveness for purchasing its PC and mobile games.

The Electronic Gaming Development Company (EGDC) from Saudi Arabia has become one of the largest shareholders of Capcom

Such a statement was made by the head of Savvy Games Group, Brian Ward, during his speech at the GDC 2026 conference

Epic Games is increasing the price of Fortnite's in-game currency, citing a significant rise in the expenses associated with maintaining the game.

The Pan European Game Information (PEGI) organization is set to make significant changes to its rating system. Starting in June, it will factor in four new criteria when determining age restrictions for games.

Pokémon Pokopia achieved worldwide sales exceeding 2.2 million units within the initial four days of its launch. Following its release, Nintendo's stock saw a surge of up to 10.5%, the most significant increase since April 2025.

Outersloth is a fund for supporting indie developers, established in 2022 by the creators of Among Us. The fund has decided to become more transparent and shared the text of the contract it offers to teams

Satya Nadella, the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, has pledged to "always" continue investing in the company's video games sector

In late February, Valve was sued by the authorities of New York State on charges of promoting gambling. It has now become evident that the company's problems didn't end there. It is facing two more lawsuits

On the evening of March 5th, Slay the Spire 2 launched in early access on Steam—a sequel to the hit card "roguelike" by Mega Crit studio. The release of the sequel generated significant excitement

Vento Games, a Turkish mobile development company established in 2024 by former executives of Peak Games, Fungo, and Zynga, has secured $4 million in its most recent seed funding round.

According to a report by the Financial Times, the Trump administration is currently deliberating on whether to permit Tencent, the Chinese giant, to retain its ownership stakes in gaming companies. This issue has reportedly been a topic of discussion among top officials in recent weeks. A meeting scheduled for Tuesday, which was intended for cabinet officials to address the issue, has been delayed due to scheduling conflicts. These considerations are taking place in anticipation of Donald Trump's upcoming visit to China later this month

The game reached this milestone in less than a week after its release, which took place on February 27

Minit Games is a German startup working on its own gaming platform featuring HTML5 games. The company recently successfully secured investments in a pre-seed funding round

According to Bloomberg, it is in talks to acquire a ‘small’ stake in Hungry Studio.

Layoffs continue in the gaming industry. Now, the wave of mass cuts has hit the studio Halfbrick.

She is negotiating the purchase of a "small" part of Hungry Studio, Bloomberg reports, citing sources

Splash Damage has taken over Gamepires, the creator of Scum, from Jagex, the company behind Runescape, in a deal supported by Emona Capital

The Chinese Room, an independent UK game developer that separated from Tencent's Sumo Group last year, has revealed a collaboration with Lyrical Games. This newly established publishing label was introduced last year by veterans from the ex-Take-Two label Private Division.

ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, is reportedly engaged in "advanced talks" to sell the developer of Mobile Legends, Moonton Technology, to Savvy Games Group, with the deal valued between $6 billion and $7 billion.

At this week's DICE Summit in Las Vegas, leaders and creators from the gaming industry honored Vince Zampella.

The deal will cost the Barbie manufacturer $159 million.

The Chinese studio miHoYo, known for Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero, announced that four of its former employees have been imprisoned. They were found guilty of abusing their official positions and accepting bribes.

Developers from the French indie studio The Game Bakers shared new data on the sales of Cairn — a simulator centered around mountain climbing. The team announced that the game has already attracted over 300,000 people

Despite the ever-growing popularity of AI, along with the associated hopes and fears, investments in training specialists continue to flow. In their column for App2Top, Magdalena Stryjewski, the Chief Operating Officer, and Elena Räikkönen, a manager from WN Media Group, explained why this is happening

Another Western studio of NetEase has been affected by the Chinese company's decision to reduce its presence outside of Asia. This time, it's about NetEase Games Montréal.

The head of Hooded Horse, a publishing house best known for Manor Lords and the upcoming Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, Tim Bender, gave an interview to PC Gamer. During the conversation, he criticized the vast majority of indie publishers and essentially urged developers to self-publish their games.

She owned 44.95% of the shares in Iron Wolf Studio.

We continue to wrap up the outgoing year together with representatives from gaming and gaming-adjacent companies. Up next is a conversation with Natalya Tolkacheva and Irma Novikova, representing the legal firm Prospectacy.

She did this as part of a strategic review of the gaming portfolio: recently, Aristocrat has been paying more attention to social casinos. For this reason, Aristocrat previously sold Plarium, known for RAID: Shadow Legends.

The Congressional Labor Caucus of the United States has expressed concerns to the Federal Trade Commission regarding the possible implications of the proposed $55 billion purchase of Electronic Arts by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.

The matchmaking platform MeetToMatch has been acquired by 1SP Agency, an international marketing firm.

Belfast XR Festival has introduced a new creative development fund totaling £200,000 aimed at "addressing a crucial gap in the UK's immersive media ecosystem"

The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia is transferring billions of dollars worth of stock in gaming companies to its subsidiary, Savvy Games Group.

It has become known about another studio that has suffered layoffs at Ubisoft. Ubisoft Abu Dhabi has been affected by the cuts.

According to a recent report by investment bank Aream & Co, mergers and acquisitions activity in the video game sector amounted to only $500 million in the last quarter of 2025, marking an 89% decline compared to the same period the previous year.

We continue to wrap up the year 2025 with gaming (or gaming industry-related) teams. Up next is an interview with Danila Kamenev, Head of Publishing at Indie GO Fund

Already in the new year of 2026, we continue to sum up the results of the previous year together with gaming teams (or those connected to the gaming industry). Next up is an interview with Dmitry Beley, the game director at Solarsuit Games