TOP 10 largest developer purchases in the gaming industry. The most expensive deals will surprise you!

Electronic Arts officially acquired the Codemasters studio and took over the rights to DiRT, F1 and other racing simulators. The deal amounted to $1.2 billion, but this is far from the largest purchase in the industry. It is about the most impressive deals of game developers that we will talk about in this article.

On September 21, 2020, Microsoft announced the purchase of ZeniMax, the owner of Bethesda, for an incredible $7.5 billion. The investment is definitely worth it, because Phil Spencer received the rights to such franchises as Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Dishonored, Doom, Wolfenstein and many others . Probably at that moment even the most devoted Sony fans thought about purchasing an Xbox. But the console war was just gaining momentum back then.

It is already known that Microsoft will not violate the already established developer agreements with Sony, and titles such as GhostWire: Tokyo will be able to be evaluated on the PlayStation. However, future Bethesda games will apparently be Xbox console exclusives. So, if you want to play the upcoming Fallout 5 or The Elder Scrolls 6, then get ready to buy a PC or Series X/S... if you can, of course.

If you thought that the Microsoft-ZeniMax deal was the biggest in the gaming industry, then you must be little aware of the profitability of the mobile market. But the Chinese investment company Tencent drew attention to the successes of Supercell and its hits: Clash of Clans, Clash Royale and Brawl Stars. As you know, shareware projects cost players much more than AAA, so successful games do not leave the top grossing applications of the App Store and Google Play.

$8.6 billion is the price of not even the entire company, but an 84% share. The remaining shares remain in the hands of Supercell employees. This is how the profits of casual mobile phones are significantly ahead of their console and computer counterparts: puzzling users by pumping up fences turns out to be much more profitable than directing Blaskowitz's battles with the Nazis.

The purchase of another representative of the mobile market is again associated with an astronomical amount. The American company Zynga makes games for social networks, and the mobile hits of the Turkish Peak Games, Toon Blast and Toy Blast, clearly appealed to it. Colorful puzzles have been in the TOP 20 most popular iPhone apps in the US for two years, and the revenue of each game for the entire time exceeds $600 million.

Interestingly, Peak Games will receive only half of the amount in real money, the rest will be paid in Zynga shares. It is expected that the results of the transaction will not be long in coming. Bloomberg writes that the deal will increase the daily audience of Zynga games by 60%, and revenue from Toon Blast and Toy Blast should increase the main company's revenue for the second financial half of the year by $300 million.

Most recently, Embracer Group was known as THQ Nordic AB. In 2019, the company changed its name and then began buying up gaming companies: it bought Saber Interactive for $150 million (plus $375 million if certain financial goals were achieved), and most recently Gearbox for $1.3 billion.

Don't forget that in addition to this, Embracer Group announced the purchase of Aspyr Media and Easybrain Limited studios. The first is engaged in porting games and cost the buyer $100 million with a possible bonus of $350 million. The second works in the lucrative mobile market and had to pay $640 million for it. It seems that Embracer Group is going to grab a solid piece of the gaming market, but gamers can only wait Biomutant and a new part of Metro, which will come out from under their wing.

EA was not alone in bidding to buy the developer of popular racing games, but its proposal had nothing to oppose even to the reputable Take-Two. The American corporation, with varying degrees of success, «delights» gamers with the Need for Speed ​​and Burnout series, and now there is a solid addition to the racing cohort. From now on, GRID, Colin McRae Rally and the F1 World Rally Championship belong to EA.

In general, the deal was known several months ago, but the agreement was officially reached only on February 18. EA CEO Andrew Wilson called the Codemasters purchase «the beginning of a new era for racing games» in a statement. We can only hope that popular series will not repeat the fate of, for example, Visceral Games projects.

Electronic Arts collaborated with Respawn even before it took over the developers. It was in collaboration between the two companies that two parts of Titanfall were published, and the interaction cannot be called successful. Titanfall 2 was a great game with an interesting storyline and cheerful multiplayer. However, its release took place a week before Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and a week after Battlefield 1. The project, caught in the clutches of competitors, turned into a commercial failure.

However, things subsequently improved for Respawn. First, Apex attracted millions of players into its network, and then Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order turned out to be quite decent. Maybe not every interaction with EA is doomed to failure?

Only the elders remember this deal. Microsoft made such an expensive acquisition back in 2002. At that time, the amount seemed simply astronomical. But can this deal be called a success? Big question. Rare has released a lot of games, but there are not enough truly high-profile titles among them. The only things worth mentioning are the good shooter Perfect Dark Zero, the fighting game Killer Instinct and the life simulator Viva Pinata.

In 2018, Sea of ​​Thieves was released, which, although it looked interesting, was crushed for its catastrophically small amount of content. And the Battletoads remake failed to feed gamers nostalgia.

Insomniac Games has been working with Sony since the very first game. In 1996, the shooter Disruptor was released on PlayStation One, and the Spyro series continued the tradition. The company's games rarely appeared on PC and Xbox, and in August 2019 the developer was bought by Sony for $229 million.

Compared to others, the deal price looks quite modest. However, it is unlikely that Sony will have to regret the purchase at least once. Still, Marvel's Spider-Man became one of the most successful PlayStation exclusives, and the spin-off Spider-Man: Miles Morales was liked by gamers. A sequel cannot be avoided, which means money will flow in like a river again.

If the purchase of the leading mobile developer Supercell cost the Chinese company $8.6 billion, then how much did the authors of League of Legends, one of the most popular games of our time, cost? Only interested parties have the answer to this question, but the count is probably in the billions again.

Tencent first acquired a stake in the company back in 2011, but then investors began to systematically increase their influence on the American developer. By 2015, the Chinese had a full stake in the company. Tencent tried to do something similar with Ubisoft, but the developers were able to fight back and maintain independence.

Square Enix earned a star on the gaming walk of fame with the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series alone (which predate the Square-Enix merger). In 2009, the company acquired Eidos and added to its arsenal of high-profile titles Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief and Hitman. Were the owners able to manage such wealth wisely? Not really.

The new trilogy about the adventures of Lara Croft turned out well, but fans definitely expected more. Thief was released back in 2014, and nothing has been heard about a sequel. Both Deus Ex were great, but the sequel was shelved for the long-suffering Marvel's Avengers. The Hitman series has completely gained independence... Square Enix is ​​a very strange company that alternates successes with failures. However, I would like to wish her success, after all, a new Final Fantasy is in development.

This is probably the largest deal in Russia. In October 2020, Mail.ru bought a 51.16% stake in mobile game developer Deus Craft. The developers' flagship product is Grand Hotel Mania, which in July and August 2020 took second place in the list of top-grossing mobile phones in the Time management category on both iOS and Android.

The most interesting thing is that the money has not left our country. Deus Craft is a Novosibirsk company. Prior to this, Mail.ru bought another mobile studio, Pixonic, for $30 million. Maybe one day Russian investors will invest such amounts in games for «big» platforms?

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Large deals are not uncommon in the gaming industry. We've probably left out some impressive contracts in this article. If you remember about them, be sure to write in the comments!