In the first quarter of 2021, 100 investment activities in the video games industry were tracked by Ampere Analysis, with a total disclosed deal value of US$6.8 billion - down 156% quarter-on-quarter -, bringing the total for H1 2021 to US$24.1 billion. The volume of investment activities decreased by 29% from 141 in the previous quarter to 100 in Q2 2021, mainly due to acquisition and public listing activities cooling off slightly after a spike in Q1 2021.
During the second quarter, investment was primarily driven by acquisitions, which accounted for 33% of the total value, followed by VC investments (30%), and public listings (27%). The biggest acquisition for the quarter came from EA, who bought the UK-based mobile golf game developer Playdemic for $1.4 billion, and the Canadian baseball game developer Metalhead Software for an undisclosed sum. Considering its previous acquisitions of mobile developer Glu and racing games expert Codemasters, EA has spent more than $5 billion on acquisitions in seven months.
In terms of regions, of the 100 announced deals, APAC had the most at 37 in the second quarter of 2021, followed by Europe with 32 deals, North America with 22, nine in MEA and none have been collected in South America. At a country level, China (28) surpassed the United States (20) in deal volume, becoming the most active market for investors in the industry. Other highlighted countries include Finland (six), Germany (five) and Turkey (five).
Looking at the segments that investors favored, mobile-related deal volume ranked first among all these segments for two consecutive quarters. PC/console deals had lower announced values compared to those in previous quarters. Activities on advertising platforms grew rapidly in this quarter, as companies realized the importance of building their strategy and capability in advertising after the implementation of Apple's new privacy policy.
“In H2 2021 we expect to see more major games companies going public, including Krafton, Devolver Digital and more. We anticipate that games-related investment activity will remain high in the second half of the year, as video games have become an increasingly important part of people's social lives, even though the world is recovering from the pandemic. Ampere will keep track of the dynamics in the industry,” commented Chundi Zhang, Analyst at Ampere Analysis and the author of the report.
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