Game acquisitions and fundings make a comeback in Q1 2025 | Drake Star Partners

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
April 24, 2025
Updated June 18, 2025
4 min

After some weak results in the past few years, gaming M&A hit its highest quarterly deal value in nearly two years and recovered from a dip in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to Drake Star Partners.

On top of that, Q1 2025 saw 149 private placement investments in game companies, totaling $3.5 billion in disclosed deal value. Four new game funds were announced in the quarter, and Drake Star Partners‘ Michael Metzger (who will do a fireside chat with Playtika’s Craig Abrahams at our GamesBeat Summit 2025 event) said in an interview with GamesBeat that the firm believes M&A activity in games will gradually pick up over the rest of 2025.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.