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The DeanBeat: Game acquisitions rise 23 percent to $3.4B in 2012

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 7 min

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During 2012, gaming continued its worldwide expansion toward billions of gamers as new platforms such as tablets and smartphones took off. But that growth was tempered against financial hardships such as the decline of Zynga’s social gaming revenues. That led to a collapse in Zynga’s stock price that deflated the social gaming bubble and hurt valuations.

Those countervailing forces affected the year in game acquisitions and investments. Acquisitions saw a boom year, rising 23 percent to more than $3.477 billion spent on game companies, compared to $2.827 billion a year earlier. But the number of deals declined and investments fell off.

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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.