Games industry mergers and acquisitions expected to ‘increase steadily over the next year’

Following a relatively quiet third quarter, games industry investment and deals are expected to rise steadily over the next 12 months.

That’s the opinion of Michael Metzger, a partner at tech mergers and acquisitions investment bank Drake Star.

As reported by Axios, Drake Star tracked 33 M&A deals worth some $5 billion between July and September.

By volume the figure was a two-year low, but the value of the deals exceeded those made in three of the previous five quarters.

Drake Star also tracked almost $1 billion in private investment in the games industry during the third quarter, which was up from the previous three months.

“Based on our discussions with many of the top gaming companies in the last weeks, we expect the deal volume to increase steadily over the next year,” Metzger told Axios.

He expects Sony, Take-Two, Tencent and Savvy/Scopely to be the most active buyers next year, and for Embracer Group to sell some studios.

Almost two years after the acquisition was first announced, earlier this month Microsoft officially closed its $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard, which was by far the industry’s (and Microsoft’s) biggest ever deal.

Sony could respond to Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard with a major deal of its own, according to industry consultant Dr Serkan Toto, who believes the PlayStation maker “is under pressure to react” to Xbox’s mega deal.

In a recent interview with Lan Parties, ex-PlayStation US boss Shawn Layden said he views consolidation as one of the biggest threats to the games industry.

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“My concern around consolidation is that often it impacts creativity,” he said. “For instance, it takes some kind of small, independent, wildhorse studios and brings them into a larger conglomerate and essentially time slows down the bigger you are, time slows down.

“I’m also concerned when studios get bought and instead of enabling a way to create their game, they maybe get absorbed into a larger enterprise that’s making a larger game, you know, how many studios are involved in making blockbuster games that will stagger the mind.”