M&A and Investment

It is no secret that Final Fantasy XVI failed to meet Square Enix’s expectations. New data on its life-to-date sales indicates that the game has a weak tail, confirming previous concerns about its commercial performance.

The mobile PvP strategy game Ludus: Merge Arena continues to increase its revenue. Its monthly income recently approached $3 million

Scopely is ready for its new megadeal by announcing the acquisition of Niantic’s entire video game business. The company will now own global hits like Pokémon Go and Pikmin Bloom.

Last month, indie team Crackshell released a sequel to its successful roguelite Heroes of Hammerwatch. Here’s some fresh data on the game’s sales and its performance on Steam.

The mobile game developer and publisher Good Job Games has secured its first investments. The company received $23 million, which it plans to use for further business development.

Tilting Point has announced a new User Acquisition (UA) initiative valued at $150 million aimed at assisting developers in expanding their games and apps.

On March 6, 2025, a new cooperative adventure from Hazelight Studios, Split Fiction, was released for PC and consoles. On Steam, the game is doing exceptionally well. It debuted with an "overwhelmingly positive" rating, garnering 97% positive reviews

The European Investment Fund (EIF) has committed $21 million to support game development in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden

Last month, AppLovin announced its decision to sell its video game studios to focus on its ad business. New details have now emerged about the deal and the buyer of the company’s assets.

Miniclip has made a new acquisition. It has acquired a small German studio called Lessmore, which develops mobile games.

Tencent has boosted its investment in Kadokawa, the parent company of FromSoftware, by adding 1.11% to its stake, resulting in a total ownership of 7.97%

A new fund has emerged in the gaming market, Bloomberg reports, citing sources. According to the information, Tripledot Studios co-founder Akin Babayigit has launched Arcadia Gaming Advisors, a fund that will support mobile game developers

Capcom has announced the first major milestone for Monster Hunter Wilds. Here’s how its launch sales compare to previous installments in the series and other games in the publisher’s portfolio.

Chinese giant Tencent has purchased an additional 1.11% of shares in the Japanese media conglomerate Kadokawa, which owns the studio FromSoftware, according to the Nikkei newspaper, citing Tencent's reports.

Laton Ventures has led a pre-seed funding round for Surpass Games, resulting in $1.5 million in raised capital.

Reports suggest that Niantic, the developer behind Pokémon Go, is contemplating the sale of its video game portfolio to Scopely, a subsidiary of Savvy Games Group.

Liquid Swords is a Swedish studio founded in 2020 by Christofer Sundberg, the co-founder of Avalanche Studios and the creator of Just Cause. Recently, the studio has begun layoffs

It looks like a legal dispute between Nexon and Ironmace Games has finally been settled. The Dark and Darker developer will have to pay monetary compensation to the South Korean publisher.

Embracer Group continues to recover from its cost-cutting restructuring program. The Swedish company has managed to significantly reduce its net debt over the past 12 months, also struggling with falling game sales.

Sony has released a financial report for the third quarter ended December 31, 2024. The company’s gaming division saw strong growth in both revenue and operating profit.

The Finnish company Remedy Entertainment has announced its financial results for 2024. Among other things, it shared that Alan Wake 2 has finally started to generate profit

Publisher Kepler Interactive, known for releasing games like Sifu, Scorn, and Pacific Drive, announced an acquisition. The company has taken control of the French studio Tactical Adventures.

The State Duma continues to receive proposals on how to refine the much-discussed bill "On the Development and Distribution of Video Games in the Russian Federation." Recently, the Organization for the Development of the Video Game Industry (ODVGI) sent amendments to the deputies

As part of its financial report, Paradox Interactive announced an addition to its subsidiary studios. The Bulgarian company Haemimont Games has joined the organization.

After gaining momentum ahead of launch, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II hits its first sales milestone. Here is how it compares to the first game’s figures.

On the evening of February 4, 2025, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II was released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series. According to the SteamDB service, the medieval RPG launched on Steam with a strong online presence of 159,351 people

Sumo Group has revealed plans to realign its business strategy, concentrating "exclusively on development services for partners." This shift will lead to a reorganization and could potentially involve layoffs

Bandai Namco Entertainment and Spike Chunsoft announced a new milestone for DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO. The game has sold 5 million copies worldwide

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States held the 67th annual Grammy Awards ceremony. One of the winners was the remake of the first installment of the iconic Wizardry series

Newegg, an online retailer specializing in hardware, announced that its stock of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs was depleted "within minutes." The retailer noted a significant surge in customer interest surrounding the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 models.

Consumer interest in the Black Myth: Wukong IP remains strong, with merchandise sales for Game Science’s blockbuster rising in China.

On January 29, BioWare's General Manager Gary McKay announced internal changes. According to him, the studio has decided to focus on developing a single project instead of multiple ones — the next title in the Mass Effect franchise.

MY.GAMES has announced a new major milestone for Pathfinder: Kingmaker. In addition to its commercial success, the hit CRPG is now also part of the publisher’s game launcher.

Dungeon & Fighter Mobile was released in China in May 2024 and became a huge success for Tencent and Nexon. According to estimates from analysts at Niko Partners, by the end of last year, the mobile game generated nearly $2.5 billion in China

Pocketpair is expanding its business by launching a publishing label. The Palworld developer plans to partner with other indie studios to help them fund and distribute their games.

Black Myth: Wukong became one of the phenomena of 2024: just three days after its release, its sales reached 10 million copies, and within a month they exceeded 20 million copies. The excitement surrounding it prompted investors to pay attention to other developers from China, claims gaming consultant and journalist Daniel Camilo.

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader has reached a new impressive milestone in just over a year after launch. Owlcat’s latest CRPG has now sold over 1 million copies globally.

NetherRealm Studios has announced a new milestone for Mortal Kombat 1. The game has sold over 5 million units globally since its September 2023 launch.

Sales of "Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader" reach 1 million copies

Balatro is a rare case of a single-player game that continues to steadily grow its audience without major content updates or DLCs. Here’s some new data on LocalThunk’s deck-building roguelike.

On the morning of January 21, the collectible card game Marvel Snap resumed operations in the United States after a two-day outage that occurred amid a temporary ban on TikTok in the country. During this period, its developers missed out on significant revenue

Cognosphere, the distributor of Genshin Impact, has consented to a $20 million payment to address charges filed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

On January 21, 2025, Second Dinner, the developer of Marvel Snap, announced that the game is once again operational in the United States after addressing issues related to the TikTok ban

Winking Studios, a firm specializing in outsourcing and development, has revealed plans to acquire Mineloader, a studio located in Shanghai

A week ago, Ubisoft announced that it is preparing for a reorganization. Sources at Bloomberg claim that one of the options currently being discussed is the spinoff of a portion of Ubisoft's assets into a newly created company.

Stronghold: Definitive Edition has reached a new milestone in just over a year after its release.

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.

Will McCahill, the Director of Business Development at the American studio World's Edge, analyzed the positivity levels of user reviews on Steam from 2014 to 2024. According to his observations, reviews have become more negative over time, and this trend is evident across 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.