2025 was a landmark year for gaming M&A with a record $161B in disclosed deal value driven by two mega deals: the $55B leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts (EA) by a consortium led by PIF and Netflix’s $82.7B announced acquisition of Warner Bros., including Warner Bros. Games! In parallel, Paramount–Skydance launched a hostile $108.4B bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, underscoring the scale and intensity of consolidation across media and gaming.
The Drake Star Global Gaming Report 2025 analyzes Gaming and Esports dealmaking in 2025 and outlines what to expect for 2026 and beyond.
Highlights include:
- Gaming M&A activity reached $161B in disclosed value, largely driven by the EA and Warner Bros mega deals. Other notable deals include the $3.5B acquisition of Niantic’s gaming business by Savvy / Scopely and the $800M sale of Applovin’s gaming division to Tripledot. Netflix also acquired the avatar tech company Ready Player Me in Q4’25 (Drake Star was the exclusive financial adviser on the deal).
- Private financings were led by mobile and AI. Major mobile deals included CVC/Blackstone’s $2.5B investment in Dream Games, alongside raises by Lingokids ($120M), Good Job Games ($60M), and Million Victories ($40M). On the AI side, companies building AI world models with the potential to transform how games are made raised large rounds, including Luma AI ($900M), Runway ($308M), General Intuition ($134M), and Decart ($100M).
- Overall financing activity bottomed out in Q2’25 at 105 rounds, then rebounded strongly in the second half of the year, rising to 118 rounds in Q3 and 137 rounds in Q4.
- Most active investors in 2025 included Play Ventures, BITKRAFT, and Griffin Gaming Partners among larger funds, while Impact46, Merak Capital, and TIRTA were the leading seed-stage investors. On the strategic side, Tencent, KRAFTON, and Smilegate drove the most activity, while Animoca, Arbitrum Gaming Ventures, and Spartan were the most active players in blockchain gaming.
- The most notable public deals included Embracer’s spin-outs of Asmodee and Coffee Stain, and Ubisoft’s $1.25B raise from Tencent. Take-Two completed a $1.19B equity offering, and GameStop raised $3.75B in debt.
- The Drake Star Gaming Index, which tracks the top 35 global gaming companies on an equal-weighted basis, rose 12% for the year, driven by strong performances from Unity (up 92%), NEXON (up $63%) and Netease (up 57%).
Outlook
- We have a very positive outlook for the gaming & tech M&A market in 2026, following a year of several mega deals.
- Key buyers to watch include PIF / Scopely, Netflix, Paramount, Tencent, KRAFTON, NCSoft, MTG, Take-Two, everplay, Sony, Keywords Studios / EQT, and Jagex / CVC. Private equity is expected to remain a major force in the market, with several publicly listed gaming companies increasingly viewed as attractive take-private opportunities.
- We anticipate a healthy number of seed and early-stage financings, following the positive trend in the last quarters, along with select mid-to-late-stage rounds. Several new UA funds are expected to help scale mid-stage mobile studios. For financings, AI, UGC, tools and tech platforms are expected to continue to be shining stars.
- We expect to finally see the launch of GTA 6, likely the biggest game release ever, now targeted for Nov’26. Other highly anticipated titles include Marvel’s Wolverine, Resident Evil: Requiem, Lords of the Fallen II, and 007: First Light.
- With public markets recovering, we anticipate IPO-ready gaming companies like Discord, Animoca Brands and MTG’s SimplePlay to go public this year.
Download the full report below.