Games industry M&A hits $7.7bn in Q1 2026 led by Savvy Games Group

• This Q1, M&A transaction value across 52 games industry deals totalled $7.7 billion.
• Savvy Games Group led with its $6 billion acquisition of Moonton.
• VC-led deals in early stage companies fell.
• Console earnings surpassed mobile in-app purchase revenue thanks to the Switch 2.

Games industry M&A transactions hit $7.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026 across 52 deals, according to a report.

Aream & Co’s Video Game Market Update Q1 2026 report called this a post-pandemic record. Excluding "mega-deals" like Activision Blizzard’s acquisition by Microsoft, Q1 2026 saw the highest quarterly deal value since the end of COVID.

Deal value was more than triple that of Q1 2025, which saw $2.4bn in M&A. In Q4 2025, deals amounted to just $400 million.

Mobile led the flow of M&A in the first months of 2026, with Savvy Games Group accounting for the bulk of transaction value. In the same quarter as Savvy’s $6bn acquisition of Moonton, subsidiary Scopely purchased Loom Games for $1bn.

Elsewhere in the mobile market, NCSoft acquired a 70% stake in JustPlay for $202m, Mattel announced plans to take full ownership of Mattel163 for $159m, and Nazara agreed to acquire a 50% controlling stake in social gaming platform Bluetile for $100m.

Deals, data and new records

Aream & Co reported that public offerings remained subdued at $1bn across 11 deals last quarter. Private investments grew year-over-year but declined quarter-on-quarter to $800m, across 101 deals.

"Broader macroeconomic headwinds and AI-driven market rotation weighed on public equities across the board, with gaming stocks declining in line with the wider software stocks sell-off. As a result, public capital offerings remained subdued," the report stated.

The number of VC-led deals in early stage companies dropped to a post-pandemic low. Arcadia, Bitkraft Ventures and Griffin were the most active in this space.

Beyond M&A activity, the report also looked at revenue performance across games platforms. Steam and console were highlighted for their growth, with the latter’s revenue overtaking in-app purchase earnings on mobile.

Steam revenue hit an all-time quarterly high of $5.6bn, driven by Western developers, while console revenue reached a record $21.7bn with the unprecedented success of the Switch 2. This more than offset declines in PS5 and Xbox sales, surpassing mobile’s $20.5bn in in-app purchase revenue during the quarter.

Mobile "held steady" with its seventh consecutive quarter above $20bn, despite downloads falling Y/Y.

Loom Games, Microfun and Century Games were named as the top-growing publishers in the US, with Bandai Namco and Voodoo rounding out the top five. It was noted that mobile studios in Asia and Türkiye continued to gain revenue share.

The full report can be found here.