Global Gaming Report 2023: Record year $86 billion in deal value

With $86B in disclosed value for closed deals, 2023 was a record year for gaming from a deal value standpoint, mainly due to the much-awaited closing of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision in Q4’23. Overall, 2023 was a robust year with $20B in disclosed value of announced deals. Q4’23 saw a notable pickup in M&A deals compared to Q3, and we predict M&A activity to steadily increase again in 2024.

The Drake Star Global Gaming Report 2023 analyses the fourth quarter and full year 2023 for Gaming and Esports and outlines what to expect for 2024. Download the full report at the download button below.

Highlights include: 

• A record $86B in disclosed value for closed deals and over $20B in 960 announced deals during 2023.
  
  
• 163 M&A deals were announced during 2023 with over $10.5B in disclosed deal value. Savvy Games Group/PIF’s acquisition of Scopely for $4.9B led the chart and Kahoot’s acquisition by Goldman Sachs consortium ($1.7B) and Techland’s majority acquisition by Tencent ($1.6B) were the only other $B+ deals during the year.
  
  
• Over $3.5B was raised in 750+ financing rounds of private companies, comparable to the $3.4B raised in 2020 (excluding the large Epic Games deal). Mobile was the most active segment (168), followed by blockchain (159) and platform/tools (143). Top financings were VSPO ($265M), Candivore ($100M) and Second Dinner ($100M).
  
  
• The most active VCs in early to late stage included Bitkraft, Andreessen Horowitz, Play Ventures and Griffin Gaming while the most active seed stage VCs were Goodwater Capital, 1Up Ventures, Sfermion and Shima Capital.
   

2024 Outlook

• After a hyperactive COVID period (2020-22), deal activity gradually shifted back to the pre-COVID levels in 2023 and we predict M&A activity to steadily increase again in 2024.
  
  
• Top buyers will likely be Tencent, Sony, Scopely / Savvy Games, Keywords and Take-Two, while ByteDance is about to sell its gaming business and Embracer will likely divest some of its studios. We expect Savvy Games to continue deploying more out of the $38B ear-marked for gaming M&A and financings this year. With a tightening regulatory environment in China, we foresee Tencent and other Chinese strategics to continue increasing their investments and acquisitions in the Western markets.
  
  

• While we expect some large ticket sized M&A deals, we forecast a continued uptick in smaller to mid-size M&A deals in 2024. Private equity firms are attracted by the current lower valuations of listed gaming companies, and we expect several gaming companies being taken private this year.
  
  
• We predict a healthy amount of seed / early-stage financings and a limited amount of growth / later stage rounds. Hot segments will be AI / tools and AR / VR.
  
  

• With public gaming market improving in the first half of 2024, we expect to see some of the IPO ready gaming companies to restart their going public efforts in the second half of the year.
  
  

Download the full report here at the download button below.