Analysts at Aream & Co. examined the gaming deals market in the first quarter of 2026, which spanned from January to March. To do this, they referred to data from InvestGame.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang — the flagship game of Moonton studio
- As reported by Aream & Co., in the first three months of 2026, the gaming industry concluded 164 deals. This number includes both announced and already closed deals.
- The total value of the deals was $9.5 billion. A significant portion of the funds came from just one agreement — the end-of-March announcement of the sale of Moonton studio to the Saudi company Savvy Games Group. If this deal is removed from the statistics, the total would decrease to a much more modest $3.5 billion.
- The majority of the funds came from M&A deals (mergers and acquisitions) — $7.7 billion. Interestingly, the largest M&A deals at the end of the quarter were related to the mobile gaming market. Besides the aforementioned sale of Moonton for $6 billion, the top three included the sale of Loom Games to Scopely for $1 billion and the sale of 70% of JustPlay shares to NCSOFT for $202 million.
- The volume of public offerings decreased to $1 billion. The largest event by the end of the quarter was Hasbro's issuance of senior notes totaling $400 million.
- The volume of private investments was approximately $800 million. The largest amount was raised by the AR glasses manufacturer RayNeo, which received $143 million from investors.
For comparison, in the first quarter of last year, analysts counted 193 gaming deals amounting to $6.2 billion. The funds were distributed as follows: $3.3 billion in public offerings, $2.4 billion in M&A, and $500 million in private investments. It is important to note that the figures for 2025 cover only closed deals.