Games industry M&A reaches $2.3bn in Q2 2026 

• Mid-market acquisitions above $100m reached their highest level since the pandemic boom.
• PC and casual mobile studios accounted for the quarter's biggest acquisitions.
• IPO activity rose 72% in value year over year.
• Mobile in-app purchase revenue declined 4% year-over-year.

Games industry M&A activity reached 54 transactions in the second quarter of 2026, with $2.3bn in deal value deployed. 

That's according to Aream & Co's Video Game Market Update Q2 2026, which showed that deal activity reached its highest level since 2022, with mid-market acquisitions valued above $100m hitting their highest count since the pandemic boom. 

The figure trails Q1 2026's $7.7bn, though that quarter was heavily inflated by Savvy Games Group's $6bn acquisition of Moonton.

PC and casual mobile studios drove the largest transactions. Playstack was acquired by TPG|imc for $168m, Fenris Creations completed a management buyout backed by CCP and DeepMind for $120m, while Scopely closed its acquisition of Loom Games for $1bn. 

Elsewhere, Nazara completed its acquisition of a controlling stake in Bluetile for $201m, while JustPlay was acquired for $289m. WeMade's founder stake sale to NeoPulse, announced at approximately $591m, was the quarter's largest disclosed deal.

Private investment surges in AI and AdTech

Public offerings recovered sharply, reaching $1.7bn across 25 deals, up 72% in value and 67% in deal count compared to Q2 2025. Liftoff completed a its IPO, while PlaySimple announced an IPO plan pending closing in Q3. 

Despite the capital markets activity, gaming stocks continued their broader decline, with mobile-first Western publishers down 13% year-to-date and mobile-first Asian publishers down between 37% and 42%.

Large-cap diversified companies held up best, posting a 24% gain over the same period. Private investment was the standout story of the quarter, surging approximately six times year-over-year to $3.1bn across 108 deals. 

The jump was driven almost entirely by gaming-adjacent mega-rounds rather than game content itself, with adtech firm AppsFlyer raising $1bn and AI companies General Intuition Odyssey, and Decart collectively raising over $930m. 

Mobile continued to struggle, with quarterly gross IAP revenue down 4% year-over-year and installs hitting multi-year lows, down 12%. Voodoo, Roblox and Boltray Games ranked as the top-growing publishers in the US by incremental IAP revenue. 

Singapore and Türkiye were identified as the fastest-growing publisher headquarters countries globally, up 32% and 25% respectively.

You can access the full report here.