2025 was a landmark year for gaming M&A with two mega deals: the $55B leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts (EA)by a consortium led by PIF and the 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, underscoringthe scale and intensity of consolidation across media and gaming. O...
2025 was a landmark year for gaming M&A with two mega deals: the $55B leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts (EA)by a consortium led by PIF and the 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, underscoringthe scale and intensity of consolidation across media and gaming. Other notable M&A deals included 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 PlayerMe 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 inDream Games, alongside raises by Lingokids ($120M), Good Job Games ($60M), and Million Victories ($40M). Onthe AI side, companies building AI world models with the potential to transform how games are made raised largerounds, 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 theyear, 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 werethe most active players in blockchain gaming. The most notable public deals included Embracer’s spin-outs of Asmodee and Coffee Stain, and Ubisoft’s $1.25Braise 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, rose12% for the year, ...