M&A and Investment

Last month, it was revealed that Sony is in talks to acquire Kadokawa, a Japanese media conglomerate whose subsidiaries include FromSoftware. Bunshun reported that employees at Kadokawa are hopeful for a successful outcome of the deal.

Build A Rocket Boy announced the acquisition of a new studio. It is PlayFusion — the team that developed the card games Lightseekers and Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Champions.

Build A Rocket Boy has purchased PlayFusion for an undisclosed amount.

Enish is a Japanese mobile studio known for games like De:Lithe Last Memories and Attack on Titan: Brave Order. They decided to give employees an unpleasant New Year's surprise by reducing part of their staff

Path of Exile 2 will be released as a paid early access on PC and consoles later this evening at 10:00 PM Moscow time. According to the developers, the hype surrounding the imminent launch of the game has exceeded all their expectations

Dark Math Games is one of the gaming studios founded by former ZA/UM employees. It announced securing significant investments. The exact amount hasn't been disclosed, but it is known to be a seven-figure sum

Dark Math Games has obtained further funding for its inaugural project, XXX Nightshift.

Creators Corp, a developer specializing in user-generated content for Fortnite, has secured a $2 million investment from Lumina, a newly established venture fund

The South Korean company Smilegate, known for Lost Ark and Crossfire, has made strategic investments. It has invested money in Absurd Ventures, the studio co-founded by Rockstar Games' Dan Houser.

Smilegate has formed a strategic partnership with Dan Houser's Absurd Ventures through an investment.

President Studio head Karol Konieczko announced that Crime Scene Cleaner has surpassed 500,000 copies sold. The game achieved this milestone in less than four months.

Tencent has purchased a controlling interest in the Chinese game development company Kuro Games.

Tencent has made another major investment. The Chinese tech giant now owns a majority stake in developer Kuro Games, best known for its free-to-play gacha title Wuthering Waves.

A new development in the investigation into the alleged Steam monopoly on the PC store market. The court has turned the lawsuit from Wolfire Games and Dark Catt Studios against Valve into a class action. Now, many other developers can join it.

The Skolkovo Foundation announced the creation of a special unit to help develop the Russian gaming industry. It's called "Sk Games"

CD Projekt has released its financial report for the third quarter ended October 31, 2024. The Polish company faced an expected decline in both revenue and profit following last year’s success of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.

It has been almost a week since the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. GSC Game World has already reported impressive launch sales, but here is some data from analytics platform Video Game Insights.

The number of copies sold for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has surpassed one million, announced the GSC Game World studio. They managed to cross this milestone on the second day after the release. This is despite the fact that the shooter is available on the Game Pass subscription service

Black Tabby Games announced that Slay the Princess has surpassed the milestone of half a million copies sold worldwide. It took the game just over a year to achieve this

The American indie studio Heart Machine has conducted layoffs. The studio shared this information with the portal Game Developer

The investment climate in the gaming industry is showing recovery, with the total value of deals this year performing slightly better than in 2023

Game District has secured a majority interest in Gleam Games.

Sales of Farming Simulator 25 surpassed the 2 million copy mark just a week after the game's release, announced Giants Software. This made the launch of the farming simulator the most successful in the history of the series

FromSoftware might become part of Sony Group. The Japanese company is reportedly in talks with Kadokawa, the parent company of the Elden Ring developer.

Merak Capital has unveiled an $80 million fund and accelerator aimed at fostering startups within the gaming industry across Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa (MENA) markets

Play Ventures has successfully closed its third gaming fund, securing $140 million in capital.

Bit Odd is a studio founded in 2019 by three former lead developers from Supercell, responsible for games in the Clash franchise. Recently, they successfully closed a new round of funding

SAG-AFTRA has unveiled a fresh agreement concerning video game localization.

11 bit studios has released its financial report for the nine-month period ended September 30, 2024. Thanks to the strong performance of Frostpunk 2, the Polish company achieved impressive growth across all key operating metrics.

11 bit studios announced that the sales of the city-building survival game Frostpunk 2 have reached 511,000 copies. This number does not include the copies that were downloaded for free by Game Pass subscribers—if those were included, the total number of copies would be even higher

SayGames has decided to support mobile studios that develop hybrid-casual games. The company plans to invest $30 million in these teams over the course of three years

Embracer has reached a deal valued at SEK 12.9 billion ($1.2 billion) to sell mobile game developer Easybrain to the digital entertainment company Miniclip

According to a survey, 76% of children in the United States intend to request game-related gifts during the holiday season, with nearly half expressing a desire for gaming consoles.

The Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), continues to divest from Nintendo shares. As Bloomberg noted, the fund's controlled stake in Nintendo recently decreased to 6.3%

Payload Studios has confirmed that it let go of several more employees last week. The exact number of layoffs is unknown.

Modern Times Group is poised to purchase Plarium, the developer behind Raid: Shadow Legends, from its former owner Aristocrat Leisure Limited

Shift Up has released its financial report for the third quarter ended September 30, 2024. Here’re the key findings about the South Korean company’s performance and its games.

Australian gambling company Aristocrat has decided to divest one of its core assets, Plarium. The Raid Shadow Legends developer will be sold to Modern Times Group (MTG) for up to $820 million.

NetEase's Eggy Party launched a creator program aimed at boosting UGC activity. The developers have taken the first step towards an open platform for creativity, where players can create content and earn from it.

Top App Games studio shared the successes of its mobile PvP strategy game, Ludus: Merge Arena, which was launched in October 2023

Sony has released its financial report for the second quarter ended September 30, 2024. Here are the key takeaways about the company’s video game business.

Tencent confirmed to PocketGamer that it has carried out layoffs at the London office of the studio Sharkmob. The exact number of employees affected has not been disclosed

Hogwarts Legacy has been a massive success for Warner Bros. Discovery’s gaming division, also strengthening the franchise’s position. And the game has now reached a new impressive milestone.

Warhorse Studios has announced a new sales milestone for Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The medieval RPG has now sold over 8 million copies globally.

Atari has reached an agreement with experienced game developer Chris Sawyer to acquire the iconic management game, Transport Tycoon.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have shared the first results of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. The companies also revealed the figures for the entire franchise.

Indie studio Pounce Light, made up of just two developers, shared with GameDiscoverCo the successes of their castle-building simulator Tiny Glade, which was released on September 23

While Balatro is one of the biggest indie hits of 2024, solo developer LocalThunk didn’t expect the game to become such a huge success.

The creator of the card "roguelike" Balatro admitted that the game's success exceeded all expectations. According to LocalThunk, it was originally conceived as an experiment, and the working folder is still simply named "CardGame" and is stored among other learning projects.

Redwood, a recently established investment company, has acquired a majority interest valued at $65 million in the Indian game streaming platform Loco.