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Game deals for H1 2021 almost double total 2020 investments

The value for deals announced and/or closed during the first half of the year hit $60 billion

Acquisitions, public offerings and other investments in the games industry have reached $60 billion during the first half of 2021.

That's almost twice as much as the amount for the full year of 2020, investment bank Drake Star Partners reported.

635 deals have been announced and/or closed during the first six months of 2021, with the wide majority of them being private placements (364), followed by merger and acquisitions with 169.

In terms of value, M&A represented the highest value, with a total of $23 billion invested during H1 2021, followed by public financings at $16.4 billion and IPOs at $11.2 billion.

Looking at the M&A deals by segment, there were 51 M&As in the PC/console sector, 44 in mobile, 38 in esports, 28 in hardware/tools, and 8 in platform.

Among the acquisition highlights of the first half of the year, the report mentioned EA acquiring Playdemic for $1.4 billion, WarnerMedia joining with Discovery in a $43 billion deal, and Take-Two acquiring Nordeus for $378 million.

On the fundraising side, Dream Games raised $155 million last week, and VRChat closed a $80m Series D funding round, among others.

Finally, public market highlights included PUBG parent company Krafton applying for an IPO.

The biggest deal of the first half of 2021, however, was the Zenimax acquisition by Microsoft for $7.5 billion -- while it was announced back in September 2020, the deal was closed earlier this year. It was followed by ByteDance acquisition of Moonton Technology, for $4 billion, and finally EA's acquisition of Glu for $2.1 billion.

Games investments reached $33.6 billion in 2020.

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Marie Dealessandri avatar

Marie Dealessandri

Deputy Editor

Marie Dealessandri joined GamesIndustry.biz in 2019 to head its Academy section. A journalist since 2012, she started in games in 2016 at B2B magazine MCV. She can be found (rarely) tweeting @mariedeal, usually on a loop about Baldur’s Gate and the Dead Cells soundtrack. GI resident Moomins expert.