Global games market to hit $196 billion by 2026

• Only 60 gaming VC deals closed in Q2, marking a 55% decline from last year.
• European VC investment in games reached $113m in 2025, with a shift toward seed-stage deals.
• Take-Two could break even on GTA VI’s $2bn development cost within 30 days of launch.

The global games market is projected to grow to $196 billion by 2026, reflecting a steady annual increase of 3.7%. 

That's according to a new Q2 2025 report from Konvoy which showed that venture capital funding reached $193m, a drop of 47% quarter-over-quarter and 62% year-over-year.

Deal volume also fell, with only 60 VC deals completed during the quarter, down 13% from Q1 and 55% from the same period last year. 

Elsewhere in the report, Konvoy says the court ruling against Apple’s App Store “walled garden” could drastically reduce fees for mobile developers from 30% to as low as 2–5% by allowing them to use alternative payment systems. 

Regional growth 

In Europe, VC funding for games has reached $113m so far in 2025, with a noticeable shift from Series A to Seed-stage investments in the most recent quarter. 

A significant majority (79%) of this funding has gone to game development studios, indicating strong early-stage interest in content creation. 

Meanwhile, Konvoy found that the region is also seeing signs of industry consolidation on the M&A front, exemplified by deals like Tripledot’s acquisition by AppLovin Games. 

Revenue generation 

In 2024, the US and China each generated 26% of global games revenue, but their gamer bases and spending habits differ significantly. 

While China accounted for 20.5% of global gamers, the US represented just 6.4%, meaning the average US gamer spends 3.1 times more annually on games than their Chinese counterpart. 

Since 2021, video game startups in the US have attracted 7.7 times more VC funding than those in China, with over five times as many US-based startups receiving investment during that period.

Elsewhere, the report highlighted that the GTA franchise has earned over $9.72bn since GTA V’s launch, but the delay of GTA VI has left a major gap in the 2025 games release calendar.

Despite its massive $2bn development cost - far exceeding GTA V’s $254m - analysts believe Take-Two could break even within 30 days of GTA VI’s release, especially with an $80 price point and potential for subscription upsells.