Game investment snapshot in Q1 2020.

Gaming acquisitions and investments continued in Q1 despite coronavirus

Investors and funds pumped more than $700 million game startups in the first quarter, though that amount is down from the same period last year. This is from data collected by Sergei Evdokimov, an investment associate at Mail.ru Games Ventures.

It was a big dip, but it’s not bad for a quarter with so much turmoil. In an email to GamesBeat, Evdokimov said we shouldn’t panic about it because lots of game investments never disclose the amounts raised. The public data is very spotty, and this number shows us a lot of activity in Q1, even though the coronavirus triggered lockdowns and stock market plummets in March. The data on games is spotty, but it’s all we have to go on. We’ll see data from other sources, but for now, let’s take a look at what Evdokimov has collected.

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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.