The overall volume of games industry deals remained stable in H1 2025, dropping by just 5% to 207 versus H2 2024. The decline was driven by fewer early-stage funding rounds (-17% H/H), as investors remain cautious amid growing concerns that consumers are less willing to spend on games: Ampere is currently forecasting just 1% growth across games content and services in 2025. Lower spend makes companies more risk averse and creates an environment where early/growth-stage investments are less viable and this is likely a knock-on effect from Trump’s tariffs.

Early-stage investment decline was offset by an increase of 56% in late-stage funding. One of the largest late-stage deals was Tencent’s $1.25bn minority investment in a new Ubisoft subsidiary. Following title cancellations and underwhelming title launches, Ubisoft has faced real financial hardships in recent years. In a bid to turn its business around, the company plans to rapidly evolve its business model by transferring ownership of its flagship franchises (including Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six) to a new subsidiary. Developing the titles into multiplatform ecosystems will be the primary objective, which comes as no surprise as franchises are becoming increasingly valuable in the cross-media space.

Investment value reached over $10bn in H1 2025, remaining stable after a 2% decline versus H2 2024. Activity was concentrated to Q1 2025, which accounted for 91% of H1s total investment value, but Q2 still included several valuable deals. In June 2025, Krafton – the South Korean studio behind PUBG: Battlegrounds – acquired ADK Group, an advertising and animation group based in Japan. Onboarding ADK’s expertise in Animation planning and production will bring Krafton closer to its long-term strategy of expanding and diversifying beyond games. Krafton now has the capacity to create, own, and distribute cross-media content globally entirely in-house. The company has relied almost entirely on PUBG as its primary source of revenue, but this shift will onboard the skills needed to expand its original IP to new entertainment formats. Likewise, ADK will gain access to Krafton’s game development and service expertise.

Investors targeted mobile-focused companies in H1 2025, supporting cost efficient user acquisition tools

While growth in consumer spend on mobile has slowed in recent years compared to the 2010s, it has seen better growth than other established platforms like console and PC. The platform experienced a spike in interest in H1 2025, reaching the highest H1 deal volume since 2022. The platform is regaining traction as artificial intelligence (AI) has helped to cut the costs of user acquisition – something that surged following tighter restrictions around user privacy. Companies such as Sett and Metica raised $15m and $9m respectively for their AI driven user acquisition platforms, built for mobile-based games.

Ampere clients can read a more detailed analysis of games industry investments in H1 2025 here.