Game Industry M&A in 2022

Is Game Industry M&A in 2022 in Trouble?

Last year, I believed that the nature of game industry consolidation was at the cusp of significant change.

Two posts that addressed some of the significant changes occurring:

• The Warning | Game Companies Face Structural Transition in 2021

• Four Growth Paradigms: Zynga, Applovin, Skillz, and Jam City Part 1 and Part 2

After a 5-year bull run in M&A last year by the likes of Chris Petrovic during his run at Zynga and other companies like Stillfront, Embracer, and MTG, it certainly felt as if a change were in the air.

Investor expectations demand growth. To feed the beast of growth, M&A would continue. However, how many more targets were left?

There was a sense that M&A would shift from mid-tier scale targets. As supply (at least of “easy” targets) in the mid-tier market dried up, I believed there would be a shift to larger and smaller scale targets.

So, where are we now? What happened, and what’s likely to transpire in 2022?

To find out, I called on three of the best people in the games industry to answer this question and comment on what’s likely to happen moving forward.

Speakers:

• Saad Choudri, CEO at Miniclip

• Joseph Kim, CEO at LILA Games (Moderator)

• Michael Metzger, Partner at Drake Star Partners

• Chris Petrovic, Chief Business Officer at FunPlus

Check out this stellar panel with a super interesting discussion in which we discuss:

0:00 Introduction

4:13 Activision to Microsoft

12:16 Zynga to Take-Two

25:30 Current M&A Landscape

39:25 Potential Targets

48:17 Playtika Acquisition

 51:52 Carve-Out Opportunities

1:01:03 Predictions

Happy Monday everybody!