M&A games were flooded in 2024, but the collection of donations doubled Quantum technology partners

Merge and acquisitions of games decreased by 3 % to $ 11.5 billion in 2024, but the collection of donations doubled, according to a report issued by Quantum Tech Partners, a consulting and purchase consultant.

“It comes to 2025, the wind turns in a general favorable direction.”

The M&A games were flat and were often implemented through some big deals, such as buying EQT for keyword studios for $ 2.8 billion and PlayTika acquisition on SuperPlay for $ 1.95 billion. The aesthetics of 2024 and 2023 are translated into a few flat years after an explosion during the epidemic in the zero percent of the interest rates that motivated the deals.

Integration, purchase and donation processes are positive indicators for the growth of industry, as they indicate that the capital flows into the industry and the old warriors who recover. But it is not always “good news”.

It is a situation in which the financial winds of the industry have not been blown in the same direction of employment trends. The activity of the deal in the collection of donations, for example, but the demobilization of workers during the year 2024 reached 15,000. In total, it lost an estimated 34,000 jobs in the past 2.5 years, and only this month is Employment starting from the rate of workers’ demobilizationAmir Slatat, the hero of work resources, said this week. In short, although 2024 was a terrible year for job losses and studio closure, it was a better year than a year before for investments.

We expect accurate growth in 2025 and there are some factors there. I think the factors are that public budgets in all areas are healthier. There is a lot of money to focus on the correct projects, reduce the difference, and strip things that may not have been logical in the first place. ”

Companies that keep cash and revenue, and are likely to look forward to obtaining them. Quantum Tech Partners is one of the multiple companies that report financial results for the year 2024 in games, and the data is not always lined as different companies are deals in different ways. Others who published 2024 reports Drake Star Partnersand Konvoy Ventures and Hiro Capital.

“We had a great receipt in conversations from buyers looking for high -quality assets that have revenues and have a profit. Therefore, it returns to the basics in terms of quality that attracts great attention, and how to know how to build a high -quality company.”

Better look at financing

Saltis said that the strategic reasons for making deals are improving, and this is a trend that can contribute to the momentum of industry. The impulsive growth has become, although some of them are made for reasons like the payments of the main people.

“For 2025, we see improving activity on integration, purchases and donation collection,” said Saltis. “Large drivers include Switch 2 Out and Grand Theft Auto VI. We hope at some point this year. This will bring wider attention.”

In 2024, there were 996 donations. The average increase for each deal was 27 million dollars, about twice last year. In 2024, the average semester financing was $ 4.3 billion, better than 2 billion dollars in 2023 and 4 billion dollars in 2022. Over the past five years, more than $ 93 billion has been raised in the past five years. The largest investment in 2024 was Disney poured $ 1.5 billion in epic games.

“As the investments go, the investments are generally rising, but they do not feel it. If you talk to anyone in the industry, everyone is struggling with the collection of donations. VCS is much slower in the movement. Publishers are much slower in publishing. They publish smaller examination sizes But the data shows that we are doubled in the total collection of donations early to growth to the late stage.

She added: “What you see is the average increase for each deal that also doubles. Thus we moved from a place where most deals amounted to about 12 million dollars on average, and now it is 27 million dollars, and the separation activity was constantly doubled in 2024 Apart from 2023. If you think about it, this is not what you hear day after day in the talks, at least with early theater companies.

One of the explanations for this: In 2023, about 25 % of all financing went to startups in the early stage. This year, there was a Beck App, but only 15 % went to early stage deals. Saltis said that the biggest Beck App was in late stage deals.

In 2024, much of the activity of integration and purchases was driven by Embraler, where sections were sold to pay their debts. For example, the Embracer Group has sold Easy to Tincent’s Miniclip for $ 1.2 billion – about 10 % of the deal activity in 2024.

About $ 1.76 billion was raised by WeB3 companies in 2024 through 325 deals. The value of the transaction increased by 52 % and the number of the deal increased by 17 %. The greatest increase was $ 350 million for infinite reality, $ 140 million for Zentry, $ 80 million for ID Planet, $ 50 million for SPFWB3Meta, and $ 43 million for Azra games.

“The endless reality was a huge round in January as well (3 billion dollars was collected),” Sultis said. “They use this capital to buy to build a large metaverse platform.”

General assessments

Quantum Tech Partners also calculates a global game index based on the assessments of some public gaming companies.

Companies are trading in health revenues three times and 13.2 times from EBITDA (profits before benefits, taxes, depreciation and extinguishing), which is a scale for profitability. Companies have more than 60 billion dollars in hand.

“The General Games of Games are healthy. It is in a healthy place. It has ended a year on an annual basis. It is a wide range of companies that include Western and East developers, as well as some engine companies. Sultis said:“ It was good. ”I think the piece is The task here is to criticize the public budget. About 20 billion dollars from $ 60 billion is from Tinetnet alone. “

Quantum Tech Partners does not include gaming or cash revenues in companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft. The bottom of the market was around October 2022, although things are still lower than the crazy summits during the epidemic in 2021 and 2020.

“This should lead to more activity. I think the revenue is multiple three times healthy.

Innie Dave Success

While there are many games that are now published, there are some Indian islands that highlight the winners.

The successes of the small budget games that struck large bases for animal fans (one developer sells more than a million copies), with chains together (one, 5.6 million copies), dark and darker (25 Dave, three million copies), by carro (one, one, five million A copy), Manor LODS (one Dave, 2.7 million copies), and Palworld (10 Devs, 100 million copies).

“Being independent means that your budget is smaller, and today we need to build smaller budget games and get them out and we are happy.

Emerging opportunities in games

Eastern content such as Black Myth: Wukong well sold, as Remaster did from the games that players played in the 1990s. There was another bright point that was Roblox, which included 89 million active players per day, as well as Fortnite, which had 110 million active users per month. Roblox $ 864 million of LTM developer exchange fees and Fortnite paid $ 352 million of developers payments. The total total of Roblox and Fortnite was $ 1.2 billion paid to developers in 2024.

“While we look where the industry grows, there is still a lot of blue oceans there, and the alternative platforms represent these opportunities to a large extent, such as Roblox, UEFN and HTML5 games,” Sultis said.

Telegram, which includes 950 million smart players, came out from anywhere as a huge power in the Web3 games. She said the games grew from 1 % of the TELGRAM fans in 2023 to 20 % in 2024. Discord is also about 90 % of the players and this is 200 million players.

Distribution is still important in gaming companies, and gaming companies are struggling to reach players through alternative application stores, given the grip of Apple and Android stores. This means that 30 % of Dev Game’s revenues go to pay the large platforms. This is a major impact and gaming companies have not escaped, although litigation in fighting monopoly from epic and governments worldwide.

Geopolitical, one of the great transformations that Soltys sees is the growth of publishing decisions and financing decisions in both South Korea and Japan. For cases, Sony has transferred a lot of financial decisions to Japan. These types of companies tend to continue to invest during difficult or good times. China can see continuous conflicts in view of the nature of its market, and wars of tariffs will not help.

“One of the things that was surprising to us is the slow use of artificial intelligence in games, as you usually see that games are at the forefront of technology.” “Amnesty International looks like it is moving very quickly throughout the games, and there is great resistance. I understand why from certain views.”