Game deals fall 89% in first half as mega transactions fail to materialize

It’s a buyers market in games. Game industry investments fell 48 percent in value, and game mergers and acquisitions fell 87 percent in the first half of 2015 compared to a year ago, according to a report from tech advisory firm Digi-Capital.

Overall, game deals are down 89 percent in the first half. Tim Merel, managing director of San Francisco-based Digi-Capital, said last year’s $24 billion in mergers and acquisitions were due to some mammoth deals such as Microsoft’s $2.5 billion acquisition of Minecraft maker Mojang. There were five mega-deals in 2014 that accounted for $8.1 billion in deals.

Meanwhile, game investments in 2014 had narrowed to a handful of VCs and strategic investors, falling 25 percent from the previous high in 2011. In some ways, this isn’t a surprise, as Asian investors have fueled much of the recent investment and acquisition boom. But those investors have cooled their heels, and the Chinese stock market’s fall in the past month isn’t helping.

Merel said that the games industry’s structure now looks a lot like it did 10 years ago, with a handful of companies dominating the top grossing charts in different sectors.

The overall outlook for games is still decent, with software revenue expected to grow 8 percent per year from $88 billion in 2015 to $110 billion by 2018. By comparison, that’s a slow rate of growth compared to other tech industries.

Merel noted that augmented reality and virtual reality could break out in 2016.

The deals that are happening are centered on mobile and tech, although at much lower levels than 2014. If the second half of 2015 looks like the first half, Digi-Capital projects $800 million of investments and $2 billion in M&A for the full year. The last time games deals were at this level was 2006.

However, there’s an accounting matter. Digi-Capital counts SoftBank’s increased investment in Supercell as “undisclosed,” though GamesBeat confirmed that SoftBank invested $1.2 billion in Supercell at a $5.5 billion valuation. The figures also exclude deals in real-money gambling, which is a very different kind of market.

“Deal making is a game of two halves,” Merel said. “When times are good for entrepreneurs and investors, they are hard for corporate acquirers. The go-go years of games deals between 2011 and 2014 were exceedingly kind to sellers, but now the buyers have smiles on their faces at the end of valuation negotiations. For games market leaders with strong IPs, cash flows, and balance sheets, it doesn’t get much better than this.”

He added, “However supply and demand don’t always meet in the middle, which explains why deal volumes are also much lower than last year. Some games companies decided to hold off on an exit when times were good, so are now sitting tight to see what happens. They might be waiting a while, as the last time the games deal market dipped (due to the global financial crisis) it took four years to recover. So for corporate buyers, knowing who is ready to sell and why is going to be crucial for taking advantage of market conditions.”