After kicking off 2022 with two mega-acquisitions, the gaming industry is poised to hit a new record of $150 billion in mergers and acquisitions, financing, and initial public offerings (IPOs) this year, according to the investment bank Drake Star Partners, which serves companies like Codemasters and Echtra Games.
In the first few weeks of 2022 alone, Microsoft offered nearly $70 billion for Activision Blizzard, while Take-Two Interactive offered $11 billion for Zynga.
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That helped this year’s total transaction value approach the record $85 billion of 2021 when more than 1,159 deals were announced or closed.
According to Michael Metzger from Drake Star, Amazon and Netflix are two companies that have yet to make their big bets of the year, but they should.
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In Asia, Tencent, ByteDance, Netease Krafton, and Sony are on the investors’ radar.
With that, Metzger also predicts that the number of startups in the industry turning into unicorns, that is, being valued at more than $1 billion, is likely to break records.
In IPOs, EPIC Games and Discord are the names to watch out for.
(Translated by LABS)
