M&A and Investment

Italian indie game developer Stormind Games, known for the Remothered series and their contribution to Mafia: The Old Country's Sicilian location alongside 2K Games and Hangar 13, has successfully secured new funding to support the creation of upcoming titles.

Yesterday, the market capitalization of skins for the evergreen hit Counter-Strike 2 dropped from $5.9 billion to $4.2 billion. Today, it's fallen even further. The reason is a new game feature that allows skins to be exchanged for others. We provide a detailed account of the situation with commentary from an expert

Update, October 17, 2025: Electronic Arts has announced that Battlefield 6 achieved sales of more than seven million copies in its first three days on the market

The upcoming sale of Electronic Arts (EA) to a group of investors has attracted the attention of two American senators. Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal have expressed “deep concern” over the deal, particularly disturbed by the inclusion of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) the buyers.

The upcoming sale of Electronic Arts (EA) to a group of investors has caught the attention of two American senators. Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal have expressed "deep concern" about the deal, as they are unsettled by the presence of the Saudi Arabian Sovereign Wealth Fund among the buyers

The popularity of Delta Force — with the game's daily active user base recently exceeding 30 million people — prompted Tencent to make changes to its strategy. In a conversation with Bloomberg, Leo Yao, managing director of Timi J3 Studio, the developer of the game, mentioned that the holding company now intends to focus more on creating its own shooters for PC

Fragbite has sold Playdigious to the venture capital firm Griffin Gaming Partners for $12.2 million (€10.5 million)

The lineup for the Investment Summit at MCM London Comic-Con, now including the EGX gaming event, has been finalized. ReedPop, the organizer, has also announced that the event, scheduled for Friday, October 24, will conclude with an industry networking reception. The summit will showcase a diverse talent roster featuring current and former GI.biz staff.

Former managers of Sony's gaming division gave an interview to The Game Business portal, in which they shared memories of working at the company in the 1990s. Among other things, they talked about two deals that fell through

Recently, the analytics company Niko Partners published a report on the Southeast Asian gaming market*. We've selected the key findings.

The game's authors—two Italian developers from the Panik Arcade studio—announced this on its Steam page

Tom Stone is the former managing director of TT Games, having led the company for nearly 18 years. He recently officially unveiled a new studio called Second Star Games

Electronic Arts (EA) has confirmed rumors about the decision to go private. The company has indeed reached an agreement with a group of investors for its buyout — under the terms of the deal, the company’s valuation will be 55 billion dollars.

Update: Electronic Arts has announced an agreement to be purchased by a consortium of investors, including Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners

The CEO of Jagex, the developer behind the iconic MMORPG RuneScape, Jon Bellamy, gave an interview to the portal The Game Business. During the conversation, he touched on the topic of AA games and their commercial potential.

Polish studio Bloober Team released a report for January-June 2025. It stated that it earned only 67,000 zlotys ($18,500) in its home market over six months. This accounts for 0.15% of its revenue worldwide

Midwest Games, headquartered in Wisconsin, has raised $2 million in funding aimed at "redefining game publishing support" and "supporting underrepresented developers."

The head of the ID@Xbox program, Chris Charla, in an interview with Eurogamer, mentioned that this year Microsoft has invested in the Game Pass subscription more than ever before. However, he did not disclose the exact amount of investment.

Chris Charla, the head of ID@Xbox, has disclosed that Xbox has undertaken its most significant investment in Game Pass so far, scheduled for 2025

Half of the applications currently being distributed on RuStore were created by foreign developers, claims the store's head Dmitry Pankrushev. He disclosed this information in an interview with TASS at the Kazan Digital Week 2025 forum

This number was mentioned by the game's author, Oleg Kazakov, during an interview with IXBT Games at the sidelines of the "CONFA 2025" festival

The analytical platform AppMetrica shared data with App2Top regarding the popularity of various mobile game monetization models in Russia during the first half of 2025.

Testronic, a quality assurance firm, has obtained a "significant" infusion of funds. The company plans to utilize this investment to "accelerate growth and future-proof its worldwide operations." Additionally, the funding will aid in "strengthening" its leadership team

AppQuantum has announced the launch of AppQuantum VC, its own strategic investment fund focusing on mobile games

Ubisoft experienced minor layoffs. In a statement to the media, the company said it parted ways with nine employees as part of a restructuring that resulted from the establishment of a new subsidiary in collaboration with Tencent.

On August 20, 2025, the Chinese action game Black Myth: Wukong finally arrived on Xbox consoles, exactly one year after its release on PC and PlayStation. Rickard Linder, head of the analytics company Alinea Analytics, shared on LinkedIn that the launch took place without much fanfare

Applications are now open for the sixth round of A16Z Speedrun's startup accelerator program, a venture capital initiative.

Recently, the shareholders of Thunderful Group approved the sale of 81.7% of the Swedish holding company to Atari. In an interview with GamesIndustry, Atari CEO Wade Rosen discussed why he decided to go through with this deal.

The company now owns a 57% stake

Recently, the shareholders of Thunderful Group approved the sale of 81.7% of the Swedish holding to Atari. In an interview with GamesIndustry, Atari CEO Wade Rosen explained why he decided to proceed with this deal

Shareholders of Thunderful Group have given the green light to a transaction that results in Atari becoming the principal shareholder of the Swedish firm

Crystal Dynamics studio announced a new round of layoffs on LinkedIn. This time, they did not disclose the number of affected employees

Sony plans to raise the price of the PlayStation 5 in the United States starting tomorrow, August 21

In the '90s, ego and emotions buried Hasbro's ambitions in the video game sector. Now it's transforming its business with a focus on developing its own titles and centralized management by Wizards of the Coast. More about the company's new strategy and financial standing can be found in our comprehensive article

According to analysts from Alinea Analytics, the update that added a desert biome and a major discount significantly boosted sales of the cooperative climbing hit, Peak.

On June 12, the studio Flazm and publisher Polden Publishing released the railroad economic puzzle game Train Valley Origins on Steam. According to Kirill Oreshkin, co-founder of Polden Publishing, "the game didn't do well at all"

VG Insights announced on LinkedIn that the new installment of Mafia sold that many copies.

Generation Media has taken over the creative agency, Portal Studio.

Duolingo, the language learning application, has acquired NextBeat, the developer behind Beatstar and a music gaming startup. This acquisition aims to ensure Duolingo's music course becomes "as fun and joyful as the best mobile games in the market."

The details of the deal have not been disclosed—neither the amount nor the terms are known.

Itch.io has started the process of "re-indexing" its free adult content and intends to slowly reintroduce paid content. This initiative aims to ensure the platform can "confidently support the widest range of creators in the long term"

At the beginning of the month, the retail network "M.Video-Eldorado" reported on console sales in Russia for January-March 2025. A few weeks later, it summarized the results for the entire first half of the year.

Ludus: Merge Arena is a mobile PvP strategy game developed by the studio Top App Games, which is part of the Utmost Games holding. Recently, its audience reached a significant milestone of 7 million users

Playrix has entered into an agreement with the Chinese publisher iDreamSky. Through its subsidiary, PLR Worldwide Sales Limited, it acquired 38.08 million shares of the publisher for 39 million Hong Kong dollars (4.97 million US dollars)

A recent report forecasts a downturn for the East Asia video game market in 2025, driven by global challenges impacting Japan and South Korea.

GungHo Online, the publisher and developer of Puzzle & Dragons, is evaluating a proposal from shareholders to remove Kazuki Morishita from his roles as CEO and president.

There is a new addition to the KRAFTON family of subsidiary companies. The studio Eleventh Hour Games, which developed the action role-playing game Last Epoch, has joined them.

Appcharge, a direct-to-consumer payment platform catering to mobile game publishers, has conducted an analysis on $500 million worth of web store transactions. The study highlights a diverse range of payment preferences across different countries

The KRAFTON family of subsidiary companies has grown. It has been joined by the studio Eleventh Hour Games, the developer of the action RPG Last Epoch.

The Sony Corporation has entered into a strategic partnership agreement with Bandai Namco Holdings. Under this deal, it will acquire 16 million shares of the holding company, paying 68 billion yen ($464.5 million) for them.