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Mobile games deals reached $15.5 billion in 2021, says Drake Star

Topped $85 billion in games deals across the board

Mobile games deals reached $15.5 billion in 2021, says Drake Star

In 2021, games industry deals surpassed $85 billion across 1,159 transactions, according to investment banking firm Drake Star Partners.

In the firm’s Global Gaming Report 2021, it outlined that the total value of acquisitions to take place reached $37.8 billion across 299 announced and closed deals.

Out of the 299 games related deals across the year, the mobile games space were the second-most frequent behind PC/console deals, at 77 and 107 respectively.

Despite not leading in number, mobile games deals accounted for the highest deal value at $15.5 billion. Comparatively, PC/console deals accounted for $13.9 billion of the overall spend.

On the horizon

The M&A side was led by industry heavy hitters, including Embracer, Tencent, Zynga, and ByteDance. The largest acquisition of the year was ByteDance’s $4 billion acquisition of Moonton.

The ball has already begun to roll this year, with Take-Two’s $12.7 billion acquisition of Zynga, the largest acquisition to ever happen in the games industry.

With the total acquisition spend already creeping up on last year’s total in a matter of weeks, we can expect to see a lot more M&A in 2022.

Outside of investments, according to App Annie consumers spent $116 billion on mobile games in 2021, with titles such as Roblox and Genshin Impact leading the front.


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