M&A and Investment

We continue our review of 2024 together with top managers and experts from the games industry (and related fields). Up next is an interview with Shum Singh, managing director and founder of Agnitio Capital.

The Director of Business Development at the American studio World's Edge, Will McCahill, analyzed the level of positivity in user reviews on Steam from 2014 to 2024. According to his observations, the reviews have become more negative over time, and this is true for all languages

Dragami Games has shared a new milestone for the Lollipop Chainsaw remaster. The action game turned out to be a success for the Japanese company.

The remastered zombie action game Lollipop Chainsaw is selling well. Developers from Dragami Games announced that in four months, the game has sold over 200,000 copies worldwide.

Grand Games, a mobile studio, has successfully secured $30 million in a Series A funding round with Balderton Capital as the lead investor.

We continue our review of 2024 together with top managers and experts from the games industry (and related fields). Up next is an interview with Nick Matsokin, executive director at MGVC.

Lenovo has introduced the Legion Go S, marking it as the inaugural third-party PC handheld device authorized to operate Valve's SteamOS.

We continue our review of 2024 together with top managers and experts from the games industry (and related fields). Up next is an interview with Vladimir Nikolsky, founder of Utmost Games.

We continue our review of 2024 together with top managers and experts from the gaming industry (and related fields). Up next is an interview with Martin Rabl, head of marketing at GIANTS Software.

DoubleU Games has purchased the Turkish game development company Paxie Games in a deal valued at up to $67 million

Although "Lesta Games" has been registered in St. Petersburg since its founding in 1991, it only purchased its first real estate in the city more than three decades later. The group of companies announced that it became the owner of the "Renaissance Pravda" business center.

PlatinumGames and Square Enix announced that sales of NieR: Automata have reached a new significant milestone. By the end of 2024, the game has sold over 9 million copies worldwide

South Korean DoubleU Games, specializing in social casinos, has decided to diversify its portfolio. It announced the acquisition of Turkish studio Paxie Games, the creators of mobile merge puzzles

Anton Gorelkin, a member of the Russian State Duma and deputy chairman of the committee on information policy, shared new details about the upcoming Russian console on his Telegram channel. In particular, he discussed its technical components.

Sony is boosting its investment in Kadokawa Corporation, positioning itself as the largest shareholder of the parent company of FromSoftware

Sony has strengthened its partnership with Kadokawa by increasing its stake in the corporation. This comes amid reports of a potential acquisition.

The Polish company 11 bit studios has decided to cancel the game codenamed Project 8. They had warned about the likelihood of this outcome last week when they started auditing the project.

NCSoft continues its global expansion by announcing two deals with two game development studios. This is in line with the Lineage maker’s strategy to diversify its portfolio.

2024 has been a big year for indie games, with two major releases — Balatro and Buckshot Roulette — recently hitting new sales milestones.

Not only is Balatro experiencing strong sales, but Estonian solo developer Mike Klubnika has also shared new successes of his creation. He announced that as of today, the horror game about playing "Russian roulette," Buckshot Roulette, has surpassed 4 million copies sold

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